


tiny furniture

by poetdameron



Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series), Karate Kid (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Miguel/Robby, Character Study, Domesticity, Getting Together, Healing, M/M, Men Crying, POV Johnny Lawrence, Podfic Welcome, Rivals to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:40:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 44,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26836075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poetdameron/pseuds/poetdameron
Summary: Johnny keeps the bonsai Daniel gave him at the dealership, and many things grow.
Relationships: Daniel LaRusso/Johnny Lawrence, Miguel Diaz/Robby Keene, Robby Keene & Johnny Lawrence
Comments: 90
Kudos: 420





	tiny furniture

**Author's Note:**

> You guys know how this starts, "this was supposed to be short". 
> 
> The truth is, I'm kind of proud of what I ended up writing—mostly because I got to do it in record time (for me). I sat down and wrote more than half of it in a day, struggled a bit with just one part, and ended up re-writing three seasons of my favorite show by making it as gay as me. So yeah, I'm proud!
> 
> Shout out to lostmagician for her input and friendship.

His mind felt… dusty. 

As if he hadn’t used his brains in a while, turned off like an old lamp in an attic as he heard the ghost from the past in front of him.

Johnny blinked a couple of times, looking at the man currently shoving a tree into his hands and chest as he grinned down at the contact between their fingers.

It was a small thing that meant nothing, but it wasn’t the first time Daniel LaRusso found a way to touch his skin and once again, as he stood there in the light, Johnny wondered what his game was about?

The sun on his back when he left reminded him he was alive and had consumed way more alcohol that he cared to recall. His car was still stuck here, now a charity work for the man that kicked away his prospects for a better life a long time ago.

Johnny held the little tree in his hands. He never really related the plant to LaRusso and he probably shouldn’t be letting him ruin yet another thing for him. He eyed it, thick and green, too small for his hands and body.

In his head, he saw himself letting it fall into the ground as he walked away.

He had so much to do. A place to rent, paint to buy, a student to find.

But, in spite of himself, he took it with him. 

Johnny wasn’t about to let the curse of Daniel LaRusso ruin yet another living thing for him.

**Tiny Furniture**

As a child, Johnny remembered his mother loved all kinds of cute little things.

She used to call him  _ Johnny _ and it stuck with him for the rest of his life. Laura had said it was because he’d been tiny, so small he fit in her arms easily and she would walk around their small apartment, singing for him so he would fall asleep.

He knew he had been a restless baby, kicking and crying ever since he was born, just like his own son so many years later—but Laura had loved him. She had cared for him as she did all small objects in her hands, all small plants and animals Sid would allow her to have as Johnny grew older.

Often, she would say she still saw him like that: her small boy, made of paper and tears, the kid she needed to protect. The child she sacrificed so much for. And so, he grew up to be unable to hold these tiny little things.

Robby had been a small bean when he was born.

He’d seen him three days after, corners and clothes still reeking of lingering alcohol, Shannon sending daggers to him as she allowed him to see their child.

Baby Robby had looked up at him with green eyes full of light and he understood there, he could never hold such a small, precious thing.

The tree’s green reminded him of his son.

Johnny left it on his bedside table and told himself he’ll ask the mexican kid if he knew how these things were watered.

Maybe it was a bad idea for him to be taking care of alive things after all.

* * *

Miguel and his family were from Ecuador.

The boy kept reminding him every time Johnny called him whatever he wanted. There was a patience in that kid that reminded him of his mother sighing deeply as she tried to explain to Sid how and where he was wrong about things.

Sid would slap her sometimes, when he thought Johnny wasn’t looking. So, instead, Johnny just nodded at Miguel and tried to keep in mind whatever he said while still barking orders at him.

He was a good kid. Bony and weak, he reminded him of someone else but Johnny couldn’t quite put it together just yet.

Many things often got lost in his head. 

Between beer and movies, loud music and now karate, many things took flight and never came back—and when they did, he was too plastered to remember the next morning, often the dreams just blank things he knew were there but he could never understand.

Not anymore.

Like many other mornings, Johnny woke up with a headache and a name in the tip of his tongue but nothing else. The sun filtered from the window and gave the little tree on his bedside table a glow he hadn’t seen in a long time.

It reminded him of his mother’s garden, the color of her hair under the sun, her favorite dress in Summer.

He blinked a couple of times.

“Shit.” Johnny grabbed his jeans from the night before, searching for the paper Miguel had given him.

The boy had made him a list of things to do for the stupid tree. He had said it was simple things, nothing to worry about beyond keeping it alive in its pot. But he had gone on and on about it, almost as if he had become an expert overnight.

_ “We need to first check what kind of tree it is.” _

_ “Kind of tree? Aren’t all the same?” _

_ “No, look—there’s outdoors bonsai and indoors bonsai...” _

_ “Like cats?” _

_ “I guess… maybe you should name it!” _

_ “I’m not gonna name a fucking plant!” _

Johnny looked at the paper, the list of shit Miguel had put down for him.

  1. It should be kept away from direct heat or draft
  2. Keep your bonsai in an area with plenty of sunlight. If it’s an outdoors bonsai, it should be direct sunlight. If it’s an indoors bonsai, it shouldn’t be too direct. 
  3. Bonsais need humidity in order to keep their soil moist, keep it in a place with humidity!
  4. Watering is tricky but you have to when the soil appears dry. Depending on the size. Don’t let it drown! Just make sure the soil is moist.
  5. Search for something to collect the excess of water. When the water comes out the draining holes of the pot, you have successfully watered your bonsai!
  6. Be mindful of underwatering because it can kill the tree. Symptoms of an underwatered bonsai are yellowing of leaves and the shriveling of smaller branches.
  7. To ensure that you’re watering your bonsai properly, you’ll need to assess your bonsai daily. The rule of thumb is to water as soon as the soil appears dry!
  8. Talk to it! Plants like to be talked to!



The thing went on, something about keeping shape and whatever. 

Johnny sighed, putting a finger in the tree’s soil and thinking of a place to leave it. 

Humid and sunny. 

Nothing in his small apartment could ever—maybe if he left the blinds open for the day, the sun could hit the tree. This shitty place was always humid anyway.

He moved the furniture, put a table under the window and the tree in the corner. The morning sun hit it there pretty well, not too much but not too little.

According to Miguel’s internet dive, it was an indoors thing or something. A ficus. Miguel named it a she.

The leaves shone green like his kid’s eyes when he was small and precious, the golden halo of the morning seemed unreal right in front of him.

Johnny shook his head and turned to get into the bathroom.

* * *

In Sid’s house, everything was big.

When they moved in, Johnny had been excited at the sight but scared of the man.

Even before the wedding, Sid had never liked him, and Johnny could remember feeling like an intruder in his life even after his mother had tried to convince him of how good things were going to be for now on, that he would have a father.

He could admit it now, as he drank, that he had been excited about that, hopeful. He’d been a kid full of silly dreams, feeling small in front of an enormous world, and he had thought maybe this time—maybe he could have a dad that won’t leave.

On his first day in the house, Sid called him a sissy and a girl. He hit him for the first time two nights after. And the illusion was drained out of him.

He learned to fade into the hallways and the silence, quiet with his walkman and nothing else. 

Johnny would sit between the wall and the couch in the library, under a desk in the studio, behind the larger couch in the living room, fading in the decoration like tiny furniture and like that, he survived.

Nowadays, as things changed and time passed, as Miguel became stronger and new students came, Johnny didn’t feel like fading anymore. He didn’t feel tiny as he did just a few months ago.

The little tree needed a leaves cut or whatever.

Miguel had taken on doing it for him since the first attempt had gone so bad. He crossed the hallway to his student’s door and waited for Rosa’s spanish and the smell of breakfast in the early morning, Carmen’s smile from the living room and Miguel running to say hi.

He sat at their table with the tree on the kitchen’s counter, ate their food, listened to their strange conversation he couldn’t understand half of the time, and didn’t feel small again.

Johnny woke up early now, didn’t drink as much though he was still drinking.

Every day, he opened the blinds and let in the sunlight.

With a finger, he made sure the soil of the tiny tree wasn’t dry and, just in case, re-read the list of instructions now hanging on the wall with tape. He watered when needed, waiting for it to come out the draining holes, looked at the color and thought of Robby.

Today he simply looked, the soil was still humid and the green was as strong as before.

Johnny worked out, ate something, and got in motion for the day.

The tree remained, just like the billboard on his way and the commercials in the radio, but this time, Johnny didn’t give a fuck.

* * *

When his son was a child, he called Robby ‘pup’ and the kid liked to play Hide and Seek.

It had been so good, when he was still six and Johnny had been sober. They used to play for hours, with toys and paper, building rockets and making comics, hunting bugs and making up stories. But Robby always loved to run, and so, they played Hide and Seek.

Usually, the boy made him count. Johnny would do so loudly, knowing well the usual places where the puppy would hide, the sound of his giggle and how he tried his best not to make a noise. 

Johnny let him have it, pretending to be lost as he searched where Robby wouldn’t be, sometimes surprising the kid with tickles that once and twice ended in tragedies they wouldn’t tell Shannon about while clothes were being cleaned in the wash machine; and Robby would get into his room, excited to be let chose his clothes for the day.

He liked to hide between things like Johnny once did. 

Robby would come out of places with dust and spiders, screaming in excitement if a bigger bug was around, curious of the colorful ones and those that would make any other child his age cry.

But his pup had always been special.

His eyes saw things the rest of the world couldn’t. He saw the world with another lens, and nothing could scare him, not even the dark or the big bugs that smell bad. 

They would lie down on the floor after playing for hours, looking at the ceiling in silence.

_ “Are you afraid of something, daddy? _ ” He once asked.

_ “Everyone’s afraid of something, pup.” _

_ “What are you afraid of, daddy.” _

He had blinked, remembering those bugs Robby let go of earlier that day, falling helplessly as they tried to run away.

_ “Falling.” _

Robby took his hand with a big smile.  _ “Well, I’ll catch you!” _

His pup would do this often—give him memories he would treasure for the rest of his life between laughs and bug lessons.

Johnny learned so much about bugs back then, he knew the fucker currently crawling in one of the little tree’s branches was a caterpillar and it could easily eat the entire thing if it wanted.

He watched it for a couple of seconds, there in the branch without moving now. How did it get there? Maybe it came with the tree from LaRusso’s, maybe the man was having a pest in his inventory and he hadn’t even realized.

The idea was kind of funny.

But months have passed ever since that morning in LaRusso Autogroup, so maybe it was the occasional trip to the Diaz's apartment that suddenly got a new roommate to his tree.

Sighing, Johnny opened the window for the first time in months, maybe even for the first time in all year. He took the tree and looked at the small animal sleeping there. He couldn’t help but shook his head.

“Sorry, bud.” Johnny murmured, taking the larvae with his fingers and slowly putting it on the edge of the window. “You’ll have to search somewhere else.”

Checking the tree for more caterpillars, he realized its leaves were getting yellowish in the back. It didn’t seem to have any more visitors for the time being, but the color made him frown. He left the tree back on it’s base and table, closing the window after making sure he wasn’t killing the bug, and then looked at Miguel’s guide to bonsai.

Underwatering.

Johnny blinked a couple of times, thinking of what to do. The soil didn’t feel too humid, but it wasn’t dry. Maybe he should leave it for the day like this, check tomorrow if it felt dry.

“Don’t die on me, asshole.” He pointed a finger to the plant.

He shook his head before leaving to start the day. 

This tree was driving him crazy.

* * *

What drove him crazy years ago had been a dream.

It had stayed with him in his 20s, appeared in his head almost every night for a year or so. 

Johnny remembered it well because there were no words and just the sound of the beach, the sun coming up in the horizon as they walked through the shore, feet getting wet with each wave.

He never told anyone about it, not even Bobby.

But he thought of it now and then, as he drove around and was attacked by billboards of curses he couldn’t shake from himself no matter what. 

It was easier to drink and forget, to drink and admit that big brown eyes made him feel something in the middle of all his numbness.

That Daniel was on his mind, and only then he could call him by his name.

* * *

The bonsai’s leaves kept getting yellow. Johnny couldn’t understand what he was doing wrong.

Rosa gave it a look, moved things and got Miguel to cut some of the leaves. She kept it for a couple of days and Johnny thought maybe it was for the best, maybe he was just not to keep this kind of stuff.

His mother had been great in her garden. 

Many things she grew there had survived for years and years, and he knew Sid made sure her garden was kept alive even now. He hadn’t seen it in years, but Johnny knew the old man wouldn’t let it die.

Johnny didn’t want the stupid tree to die.

It had been something—to see it there, always standing in the daylight. In the quiet of his room, he could almost hear it breathe at night. And it had been calming. Even in his worst nights, it had been okay.

“No se va a morir.” Rosa said, Johnny blinked a couple of times and looked at Miguel.

“It’s not gonna die.” He assured him with a smile, both looked at Rosa and the way she was changing the soil in the pot. “So, Yaya said the pot is fine but the soil is not working. She also said something about nutrients… I don’t know.”

“We are not made for this…” Johnny frowned.

“Maybe.” Miguel chuckled. “But hey, sensei—we don’t throw things in this house. We fix them.”

When he was a child, his mother used to save everything. She always said things have more than one life, that if something broke, it was their duty to try and save it. Even if at the end you couldn’t, something of it may be useful later.

It was the same with life, Laura used to say that even the most painful things would one day be useful to you— He saw it now. He saw it in the way he knew what not to do with Miguel and his students, how not to put them down.

Sid had changed that, though. He replaced things, even if they weren’t old or broken, with newer ones all the time. His mother had tried to accept it, always smiled when given gifts and suggested to buy something else— it had been so hard for her back then, Johnny realized now, to get used to the easier life.

They had been in money trouble all the time, but they were happy. She had her freedom, her independence. At the end she had none of it, just a demanding and abusive husband that made her son into an even bigger asshole.

He watched the tree’s roots as the soil was changed. 

Rosa had made him wash it and leave it to dry on newspaper as she worked, and now it lay there on the counter, looking smaller than before.

It reminded him of other times and other people, of the man that gave it to him when they were young and reckless and so much had happened between them.

Johnny remembered LaRusso laying on the beach after he beat him. On the mat during the tournament. He had looked small, almost fragile—

“Este pequeño es fuerte.” Rosa said, Johnny looked at Miguel. “Ya está, vamos a ponerlo.”

“She said the tree is strong.” Miguel translated for him as he saw Rosa take the bonsai to repot it. “And that it’s time to put it back.”

It was strong, alright. 

He blinked, putting his full attention to what was happening. 

It really was strong.

LaRusso had always taken all his beat downs and insults, and had won at the end. That little kid from Jersey, he was annoyingly persistent and strong.

He remembered him, being a tease during those months before the tournament. Invading his personal space, driving him crazy by sitting right in front of him during English, smiling up like an asshole as Johnny was made to stand and read aloud.

The boy was a man now. One that did shitty things like getting the rent of a poor neighbor’s mini-mall up just to spite him. One that did nice things like fixing his car for free.

_ We don’t throw things in this house, we fix them. _

The bonsai was ready, happy cheers filled the kitchen.

He should call Robby.

* * *

There was something about Miguel he couldn’t explain.

The boy exasperated him sometimes, but he was—he was such a  _ good _ kid, it was impossible to even get mad at him when he was being annoying.

He was also, by far, his best student.

Johnny watched him spar with Aisha, saw them both become something else from what they’ve been when Johnny first met them. 

He saw her movements, the confidence with which she stood and talked, the concentration in her stand.

Never in a million years he thought he’d see Cobra Kai with girls around, with girls fighting side by side with boys.

But Aisha was a badass. And if he kept score on his students like Kreese used to, he was sure she was number two. 

_ You're nothing, you lost, you’re a loser! _

Johnny shook his head, the thought of his old sensei always came with unwanted reminders and confusion. How do you move past a shadow like John Kreese? His friends had done it, but even now, Johnny wasn’t sure he could ever just forget his presence in his life.

The man had been a father to him, and only now that he was an adult he realized what a fucked up father that was. A sensei mentors, elevates—and all Kreese did to him at the end was make him feel like forgotten furniture on the side of the road.

He could see it in his head: the broken trophy in the parking lot, Tommy crawling on the ground to check on him after LaRusso’s sensei had stopped Kreese. 

The silence, his heavy breathing and the tears going down his cheeks, how cold it was that night.

Johnny blinked back to reality, the here and now, as Hawk jumped into action, ready to face Miguel who had won the sparring with Aisha.

He reminded him of— Johnny wasn’t sure. A bit here and there. He saw them all in Hawk, from the boys to the others that were in his class back in the day. If Johnny looked away for a second, he almost felt there again.

The familiar feeling should’ve been comforting, but all it made him think was that if he didn’t look back, he'd lose that kid and there was nothing he could do about it.

Eli. 

Johnny blinked looking as the boy dominated the friendly fight, sparks of anger coming and going. 

Hawk.

The boy won the fight, making the rest of his classmates laugh as he offered a hand to Miguel. None seemed angry at each other, they half hugged and kept the circle going. 

Johnny closed his eyes for a few seconds, taking a deep breath, willing the image of the parking lot to go away. 

He could feel it sometimes, Kreese’s hands around his neck. He could see them, the marks that were there for days, that made his mother cry with her fingers just inches away from them, unable to touch him in fear it would finally break him.

But he shook his head, replacing those thoughts with something better. The parking lot of the mini-mall. Hawk and Miguel sitting on the hood of Johnny’s car, laughing together as Aisha showed them something in her phone.

He could see them, too. The kids he and his friends have been, the kids they should’ve never stopped being— but they were adults now. They were the ones that left the furniture at the side of the road or carried with it.

Johnny opened his eyes. The sun was going down outside, it casted an orange glow into the dojo and the kids. 

They needed the sun. 

Water and soil. 

Johnny hoped he had what was needed to do the job.

* * *

In the dream, he walked with a man on the beach they met.

When he first had it, they were kids. Young hearts in search of meaning, unaware of how much they were wasting their youth in things that wouldn’t matter a few years down the road.

He was a man now, short hair and long legs, olive skin shining golden in the sunlight.

The man looked at him with big doe eyes, smiling a toothy grin he hadn’t seen in a long time.

Johnny woke up with a heart ache.

* * *

Daniel LaRusso was a fucking problem.

Everything about him had to be big and loud.

His voice, his stories, his eyes, the stupid billboards. 

LaRusso had become the kind of man that needed everything to be tall and scandalous since he couldn’t be that. He suspected maybe he felt short since most people were as tall or taller than him, so he made sure everyone still needed to look up when talking to him.

The All-Valley committee was in his pocket just like life, just like this entire city, and Johnny felt like he couldn’t breathe as he waited. He felt like one second from now, his life would be over once again— 

He needed this win. Not even for himself anymore, but the kids.

All of them trusted him, looked up at him with shining eyes as if he was truly the coolest man on the planet. It made him feel alive. 

They watered him, gave him sunshine, kept his feet on the ground.

Like his mother in her garden under the sun, like Miguel pruning the bonsai and talking to it, they made a small thing on a sad pot feel like a great redwood.

The door opened with a bang, LaRusso was walking away with firm and loud steps, yelling at him once again as he passed Johnny and then nothing mattered at all.

Nothing fucking mattered because he made it. Cobra Kai was in. His kids were in.

He kicked the air in celebration, feeling it flow around him, new energy running through his veins and then—

_ Why? _

Johnny blinked all thoughts away, but LaRusso’s angry face was still there, engraved in his brain. The man had destroyed his life, had stolen all prospects of a future, his girl, his dignity… yet, it was as if the man wanted more. 

He wanted something, always reaching with open hands towards him, fingers touching slightly, then firm. Johnny wasn’t sure what hunger LaRusso had in him, but he knew the man was now forever fixated on him, and he was right—this wasn’t over.

This, whatever it had become, may never be over.

Johnny sighed as he walked outside, looking at the pretty much empty parking lot. There was a man sitting on the back of a car, looking down. He could recognize that shape anywhere now for he was always there unable to shut up.

He blinked a couple of times, looking at LaRusso tracing lines on his own palm, frown looking deeper the closer Johnny got. 

When he stopped walking, the man looked up and they stared at each other for long seconds, all dusty things between them still in the air.

“Why are you doing this?” He asked.

The echo of his own voice in the parking lot was distracting, but Johnny stayed there, looking at LaRusso as the man processed what was told. He saw him swallow visibly.

“I can’t believe you brought back that place. After all you went through.”

What would he know about it? Johnny frowned, looking at him.

There was something in his voice, the tone of it, the lifeless exhale as he looked away. Did it pain him so much all that happened between them? His life was put together. He was fucking rich! None of these tantrums made sense.

“Like I said, I’m not Kreese and my kids aren’t bad.”

LaRusso said nothing, but he didn’t seem doubtful anymore. 

Some of these kids were his daughter’s classmates, he may as well know one or two. Johnny knew LaRusso had seen Aisha grow up, he must certainly know the kind of girl she was, why she needed Cobra Kai like Johnny once did. 

Like he still did.

“I just don’t understand!” LaRusso said, he sounded as if he would explode and either cry or fight at any given moment. “What good is there in that philosophy? Aren’t you worried they are going to turn into little soldiers? That— that they will be the bullies they are trying to fight?”

Johnny blinked and said nothing. 

He saw the man as he was, this messy bastard that liked to feel superior to everybody else… LaRusso was like it, Johnny realized. He was like one of those trees he gave away.

LaRusso needed shape and water, and sunlight and a place to be, attention.

From where Johnny was standing in the parking lot, LaRusso looked exactly as he had thirty years ago: all bony limbs and abundant dark hair, olive skin and big Bambi eyes looking everywhere but at him, as if he couldn’t bare the sight of him, as if looking would turn him into ashes.

Johnny gave a couple of steps again, LaRusso looked up and blinked.

They kept each other’s gaze in silence and there was so much more in those eyes, Johnny found himself wanting to know it all and learn it.

“I won’t let that happen.” 

If LaRusso believed him or not, he couldn’t tell. 

But he could tell there were tears in his eyes and he was willing himself to seem as strong as possible.

He could tell he had secrets. 

Well kept secrets that lurked in his shadow and nobody was allowed to speak of them. And somehow, Johnny knew not even the Mrs. was allowed in. No one. Not even the wind.

“They have strong roots…” Johnny bit his tongue, thinking of his words, hearing the laughs in his dojo, the pictures Aisha and Miguel had put in the board of his office. “Even if I fuck up, they will still stand. Like a tree.”

Whatever he said, it clicked on LaRusso. He could see it in the way he had stopped breathing and was now looking at him as if he had seen a ghost. It was quick, a blink and you miss it thing, but Johnny saw recognition in those eyes and then, the man was looking away again.

“Couldn’t you change the name? The logo? Something new?”

Johnny shook his head, he was so tired of him. “It had to be Cobra Kai.”

“Why?” He was looking at his hands. 

His left leg was moving so much, Johnny was getting dizzy. He looked up at the sky.

“It’s what I learned, what saved me—“

“He almost killed you!” 

The echo was such, Johnny felt like he was in a dream.

But in his dreams, LaRusso didn’t care. Like that night, he stayed watching and doing nothing, eying his sensei as if wondering what he was doing helping the kid that tormented him for months. 

Here, he sounded like he cared. His hands were rubbing against each other, leg moving faster.

“He was choking you right here, thirty-four years ago!” He said, signaling the place with his chin. “And you don’t fucking care!” 

“What is it to you?”

LaRusso didn’t answer, but he kept his eyes on Johnny’s until both looked away at the same time.

“What is it to you?” He repeated, softer this time— not really directed at the other man, just there between them.

The air was charged with something akin to tension, another layer was there too and Johnny didn’t have a name for it. He gripped the keys of his car in his fist, quickly thinking of something else to say before he ended up punching this idiot in the face, but then—

“Are you sure he’s dead?”

Johnny blinked a couple of times, looking up at Daniel. “Yeah. Last time I heard of him… he was dead.”

“Are you  _ sure _ ?” He insisted, Johnny frowned. “Because I’ve heard that shit before and I swear, John, I’m so over that, so fucking over that—”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“And if he comes back from the grave again and tries another of his games—”

“What?”

“I swear, if you have anything to do with them, if you are putting these kids in that man’s plate, I swear—”

“LaRusso!” 

The man looked at him. His face was red, eyes watery. What the hell was going on?

“What are you talking about?”

He was searching something on his face, his body. Those eyes went all around him and then stopped on his. He heard LaRusso’s fingers crack, his back was hounched, neck tense.

“Do you know… do you really don’t know who Te—” LaRusso swallowed visibly. Johnny watched him bite his bottom lip so hard, he was probably tasting blood. His lips were looking red as he spoke again. “The man we mentioned tonight with Kreese, do you really don’t know him?”

“Silver?” He blinked. “No. Never heard of him in my life.”

“Really?” His voice sounded soft, absent. It felt like the question wasn’t for him, but Johnny answered anyway.

“Yeah.”

LaRusso nodded, finally standing up from the car. He slowly walked towards him, eyes on the ground, the sound of his steps so small. As they stood there, he didn’t look as big as he always made himself seem. 

He looked all his years, tired. Lonely.

The man touched his chest right in the middle with just one finger. 

He pushed him without effort, Johnny didn't move.

“What’s going on?” Johnny asked, not really sure why he wanted to know. 

LaRusso’s finger stayed there, his eyes on it. Johnny kept looking at him, waiting for the man to look up.

“You can’t ask me to trust you just like that.” LaRusso finally said. Johnny wanted to push him away. “After all that has happened—”

“Why would I want your trust?” 

“Johnny, this is ridiculous— there’s no way I’m letting Cobra Kai run free in the Valley again.”

Johnny shook his head, moving away from LaRusso. The man kept his finger there, like he couldn’t believe he wasn’t touching him anymore. Slowly, he let his hand down.

Was it so bad what he did to this man? He had taken all his beatings, won the girl and the trophy at the end, humiliated him publicly, got him almost killed. What else did he want?

_ Are you sure he’s dead? _

He swallowed, turning to see him again. LaRusso had his eyes on him, the tears were gone but the spark was still there. It finally occurred to him what it was.

Fear.

“Okay.” Johnny swallowed, thinking of his mother assuring him his secrets were safe with her. “I’ll tell you a secret so you know you can trust me.”

“What?” He frowned.

“But you gotta give me something, too. So I know  _ I _ can trust you.”

The man seemed to think of it, which on itself was a win. LaRusso swallowed visibly, and nodded.

“Okay…” Johnny sighed. There was one thing he may understand. Maybe he was the only person in the Valley that could understand it. “I’ve never forgotten what happened here—”

LaRusso chuckled, “No, shit. That’s not a secret.”

“With Kreese.” He said, shaking his head. The man stopped talking, face looking guilty. “When I got home that night, my mom caught me sneaking into my room. She cried for days.”

“Why?”

“I had his hands marked on my neck.” He swallowed, feeling the marks on him again. “I couldn’t just lie to her about it, whatever I said she knew something had happened.” Johnny bit the inside of his cheek.

“I’m sorry…”

“That’s not the secret, though.” He laughed without humor, then cleared his throat. “I— felt so much when he died. I still cared. I told myself I didn’t, but—”

LaRusso crossed his arms over his chest, looking thoughtful. After a while, he looked up.

“It’s not gonna be that easy, you know?” He said at the end. “Me trusting you, after all this time.”

“Trust goes both ways, LaRusso.” Johnny reminded him, making a two with his fingers. “It’s your turn.”

“I—” He seemed to think about it. 

In reality, Johnny knew he had no real reason to trust him or follow his game. He hoped showing him one of the worst aspects of his life after the tournament may eas the way for him, make him see that he was trying—

He was trying so hard, to finally end this shit between them felt like the most important thing in the world right in that moment.

Slowly, the man looked up at him. “He pretended to be dead… In 1985. Tricked me with his friend into trusting—into trusting Silver. He said Kreese hadn’t been always bad, that war had changed him and he was now there to make amends with us, with—” He bit his bottom lip.

“With Mr. Miyagi and me, from one sensei to another because Kreese’s sensei had wanted to—” He laughed without humor, shaking his head no. “A sensei that didn’t exist, of course.” He swallowed, Johnny frowned. “They made me fight that second tournament by harassing and manipulating me for months. And I fell for it...”

Johnny moved his head to one side, trying to imagine it— Kreese pretending to be dead, some odd man coming to be friendly to a—

“I fell for it because I was always alone.” LaRusso said. “No one ever minded me and I thought— all I need is karate and Mr. Miyagi, maybe a girlfriend. But at the end of the day, it was just me in my dusty room… I thought someone was on my corner.”

“Shit, LaRusso…”

“I thought I had a friend. I liked it.” He kept saying, his words like a river: never ending, running its heavy waters against everything, even his better judgement.

It occurred to Johnny that this was it— whatever was tormenting LaRusso, it started with this. And for some reason, he had chosen Johnny to know and carry with it, too.

He knew his old sensei had been out of his mind by the end of it, he just never… truly thought of it. He never put attention to not only the parking lot but the rest of it, from the moment Kreese put his eyes on him and called him a wangless dork.

Of course he’d hate LaRusso and his sensei.

They had taken the championship from him, pushed him to that circus in the parking lot, ruined his dojo. In Kreese’s mind, the only way was the fist and retaliation. To break LaRusso, a sixteen years old lonely kid, was the easiest way to hurt his sensei.

Sick bastard.

“Fuck.” Johnny swallowed. “I’m sorry—fuck, man…”

LaRusso looked at him for what felt like an hour. He slowly shook his head.

“You knew nothing of this.” LaRusso murmured, it felt more like an affirmation to himself. But Johnny nodded anyway. “Okay.” LaRusso finally said, right in front of him. “Good luck in the tournament.”

He let his arms drop to his side, LaRusso looked so tired as he finally tried to relax.

What was he supposed to say? Johnny blinked a couple of times, thinking of Miguel and Aisha, and Hawk, and Bert, and every single one of those kids. He thought of Carmen and Rosa, the smell of food and the spanish words he frowned at but was starting to recognize. 

The tiny tree in his room, that made him open the blinds every day.

“Thanks.”

He wondered if LaRusso opened his blinds, too.

* * *

He wondered about LaRusso often.

It was easy to be mad at him, the man gave him reasons enough lately, but the truth was that after the meeting with the committee, Johnny simply thought of him and now he even had his phone number.

The bonsai had gone back to its usual green color and no more caterpillars had appeared on its branches. Johnny made sure it was okay, safe, and he wondered about  _ Bambi  _ and the way these little things seemed to mean so much to him.

He had never related the trees to the man in spite of his gi and the commercials, mostly because his mother had her garden and her little trees herself. But now, he looked at it and—

Daniel LaRusso had a way to get under his skin.

The man constantly lurked in Johnny’s head since they were young and stupid. He had dreamt of him a couple of times, mostly memories and little what ifs that would never be.

What if Johnny hadn’t listened to Kreese? What if they have talked after the tournament? What if LaRusso had done something himself when Kreese attacked him? And if Johnny had been there when Kreese attacked back? What if they had met somewhere else, at another time, in a better light?

Would they be friends? Had LaRusso been one of them? Would any of the bad blood between them exist? 

It was hard not to think of it as the man sang at his side.

The sun felt like hell that morning as they stood near LaRusso’s pool about to beat the crap out of each other. The heat had only gone up as they walked around the used car’s lot and now here—

He was warm again.

_ Daniel _ was warm. 

His voice as he sang was velvet, hard to miss as they hit words the same way, and found themselves going down memory lane together, sharing drinks and experiences.

They were so similar in so many ways, a part of it hurt to be here in this moment after so long when they could’ve discovered this before, earlier, when they were younger and could stay up all night drinking and talking.

Instead, there was history between them. Hurt and dirt.

Daniel wanted to touch him, Johnny could see it as he got closer. His fingers hovered near Johnny’s as they walked side by side, his hand slightly pushing his before he opened the door to his house’s dojo between laughs after Johnny had called him Bambi to his face.

_ You're putting on your bedroom eyes _

_ You say you're coming home but you won't say when _

But instead of sparring, instead of letting go and becoming something new, there was still history and dirt between them.

His son looked at him like a feral animal.

Robby defended Daniel as if he had found the better man. He chose him over Johnny as everyone else did, as everything else did over, and over, and over again.

He saw himself throwing that fucking bonsai as he peed on Daniel’s name. He saw himself taking it and throwing it at his fucking window, smashing it against his stupid smile on that billbord, against the ground where he walked.

“You’re a fucked up bastard and that’s why no one likes you!”

“You’re a fucking asshole, and this is why you’re alone!” 

“You’re a goddamn idiot!”

“Goddamn fool!”

“Loser!”

Each insult was meant to the man, he kept throwing them to the tree he had given him; but Johnny knew better.

The tree remained as Johnny yelled, unlike anybody else he ever had a fight with.

It was still green, still small— firm and real, there.

He saw it between the alcohol and the yelling, and Johnny frowned at it as he got closer.

It would be so easy to smash it like he always broke all delicate things.

But he took it, pressed it to his chest like Daniel had that first day. Johnny closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, the smell of wet dirt and alive things so familiar.

Mom in her garden. Daniel’s gi. Robby hunting bugs and putting them in a jar.

A loud sob escaped him, making echo in his empty apartment and sad bedroom. 

There where dust covered all, Johnny gripped the pot and pressed it to his chest as he cried, a man made into tiny furniture again.

* * *

If ghosts were real, Daniel was one. Kreese was another. Shannon too. And him, a haunted house.

His old sensei didn’t kill him, but his return filled him with dread and something else.

They looked at each other, shells of men that once thought themselves bigger than any adversity, bigger than any storm.

And they were nothing but old things in need of a second, and third, and fourth chance.

If he didn’t give Kreese one, did Johnny deserve his? No one but him could understand it.

Old dust flew by as he walked that path, unable to say no— he was here now, he was an adult. If Kreese ever tried something shady, Johnny could deal with it.

His kids had strong roots, they wouldn’t be easily broken if he failed.

Johnny opened the blinds in the morning, thinking of Robby at the sight of green. He checked on the bonsai and thought of Miguel’s words, of a name.

“Don’t die on me, girl.” Johnny reminded it as he looked at its messy edges. “We’re not done yet.”

If ghosts existed and he was haunted, so be it.

“Laurel.” He murmured. 

If Robby had been a girl, that would have been her name, because his mother didn’t want him to repeat family names anymore; but his daughter would have something of his grandmother anyway. 

“Laurie.”

He cleaned up a bit, made sure the bonsai was fine, and he got in motion like any other day.

Miguel loved the name. 

Him and Rosa immediately started to call the bonsai by its name, confusing the shit out of Carmen.

_ Laurie _ was kept in the light, standing there, in spite of Johnny’s yelling, in spite of Johnny himself.

But Kreese, he— he was  _ laughing _ .

“You gotta be shitting me!” He kept saying as they walked around the store. Johnny could feel Miguel’s eyes on him, asking why had his old sensei followed them to this. “This is not a man’s job.”

Johnny shrugged, Miguel’s frown had become deeper as he compared the images on his smart phone to the tools he was trying to get for his grandmother and the tree sitting in Johnny’s bedroom.

She had asked them to pick up some things after another of Miguel’s internet journeys. They had found better scissors for the pruning only they could do since Johnny didn’t have the patience or the talent to do it himself.

But Kreese had nothing better to do, Johnny didn’t want him to be alone in that place he lived in either, and had told him to come with them so they could grab a bite after.

He was regretting it altogether.

“I think this is the one.” Miguel murmured, showing Johnny the scissors.

“They all look the same, kid…” He answered, frowning at the object in Miguel’s hands.

The boy rolled his eyes with a smile, taking the thing with them and ending the torture that this trip had turned out to be. Kreese followed them to the cashiers, arms crossed over his chest, perpetual frown even deeper as Miguel kept talking about the pruning videos he had seen on the tube web site.

It wasn’t late before Kreese started all over again, going about how ridiculous it was for Miguel to have such a pussy hobby. But the boy said nothing, he only looked back at the old man and decided to save it to himself.

Miguel wasn’t easily talked down to. 

He listened to others and let them say whatever, then turned away. From some time now, Johnny had noticed his patience had become stronger as well as his fists, as if something had happened that taught him to shut up and listen.

Whatever it was, it had impacted him enough to keep it together during every and all remarks and insinuations from Kreese, and Johnny wondered if he had learned the way Miguel did, would it have hurt less when Kreese said those things about him in the past?

He could picture them in the dojo, the man yelling orders and calling him names as the kid he had been tried to talk about the things he liked.

Kreese had destroyed his silly love for magic and reading. Had taught him differently, told him to be a man.

Even now, Johnny wondered what he really meant. He wondered if somehow, Kreese  _ knew _ .

“No offense, sensei,” Miguel said later as they sat on his table in Johnny’s apartment, “but sensei Kreese is an homophobic asshole. And sexist. And kind of racist, too.”

“Yeah, well…” He sighed. “He was taught differently.”

Miguel looked at him, there was something in his eyes Johnny didn’t like.

It felt like disappointment.

“You should talk to him, though.” Miguel suggested, Johnny watched as the boy put attention to everything at the same time: the video on his smart phone, the tree in front of him, their conversation. “Mostly for the homophonic and sexist stuff—It’s kinda awkward.” He sighed. “And… Zack, you know? He came to Cobra Kai to become stronger because he was being bullied for being gay in his school.”

He knew that. Johnny swallowed and looked at the table.

Zack was a good kid. His  _ mother _ had talked to Johnny, had stayed a few classes to make sure her son wasn’t being mistreated in Cobra Kai  _ again _ . Everyone had been on their best behavior, and the boy had laughed his ass off the first class his mother wasn’t around, looking free and relaxed when he saw how things actually were in the dojo.

He had gotten used to him and the class, Johnny saw him hanging out with Miguel and Hawk sometimes. He could only imagine what could happen if Kreese found out—

“You said you wouldn’t fail us.”

Johnny looked up. Miguel had stopped pruning, he was looking at him with a seriousness nobody his age should have. But then again, Johnny had been all cocky smirks and loud commands at school at his age, then silence and stillness at home. Always serious and quiet.

It was so easy to hide so many things back then, kids nowadays had the curse of the internet and the way everyone thought they should be allowed to know everybody like characters in movies.

He wouldn’t have survived that pressure back then. Not with Kreese and Sid around, he wouldn’t.

“I won’t.” He assured Miguel, and Zack.

And the scared lanky kid he once was.

* * *

The little tree had been in his apartment for over a year now.

It remained firm and green, strong as Johnny went about his life after making sure it was alright and had what it needed.

Laurie, like his kids and the Diaz, was a constant in his life. It grew as many other things did too, as the kids became stronger, as he cleaned up almost every aspect of his life.

Robby was the only thing left in the dark— and then, the curse of Daniel LaRusso. The way the man had become an even bigger problem in his life than when they had been children.

He tried his best to remain as firm as Laurie while Daniel pointed at him with a finger, spitting venom as he repeated over and over how he knew Johnny had been lying about Kreese, that he hadn’t changed, that he would  _ never _ change.

But their faces had, their bodies, their movements, even their voices. The seasons changed, wind to rain, rain to sun, and nobody was stopping it.

For the first time, Johnny didn’t look down as Daniel yelled at him and Kreese intervened, amused with the whole scene. He took whatever until the man stopped, looking as if he was about to turn around and leave again, always the dramatic bastard with tremendous entrances and exits.

But he was waiting for his cue. He was waiting for Johnny to do or say anything so he could have the last word, make himself seem smarter, more prepared for whatever anybody could throw at him. It was like a survival instinct.

“What are you doing here?” Johnny asked, still shocked the man was there and had come barking like a mad dog. “You have a sensor for my every move or…?”

“I—” Bambi’s cheeks were turning red, it was something curious to see. “I don’t! What?”

“Why are you here?”

He seemed conflicted, taken aback by simple questions. Whatever he had planned originally to say had nothing to do with Kreese, who had left as Johnny asked. The man seemed to think about it, slowly coming to terms with his own decision in the span of thirty seconds.

“Have you seen your son?”

Every time he was reminded where his son was getting light and soil, it sting.

Johnny looked away, shaking his head. “Yeah, no. He isn’t my biggest fan. And since someone put in his head the idea that I, his father, told my student to hurt him, even less.” 

The last time they talked, the boy had gone on and on about how Daniel did everything better, everything good. It had felt like talking to the man himself and so, Johnny didn’t give his teenage son the reaction he was looking for; he wasn’t about to make the same mistake he had in the store.

He had made his hand into a fist as he let the boy talk on the phone, then asked if he was okay. Robby had gone silent, probably waiting for Johnny to snap and say something else, maybe just surprised nothing had come with all that.

Robby didn’t call again, his texts were simply ‘good’ and ‘okay’ every time Johnny messaged him asking if he was alright. 

At that age, he had wanted to be left alone. Maybe if he gave Robby space, it would be okay.

Daniel frowned in front of him, said nothing while looking guilty—and it felt  _ good _ . He had no doubt Daniel had been feeding Robby’s hate for him, and while he couldn’t really say he wouldn’t if he was in the same position, it was still the biggest of the dick moves.

He looked down at their feet and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Uh, I went by his apartment and—he didn’t have power, or food. Apparently, his mother is on vacation? So I took him with me…”

“What?” 

The man stopped talking, Johnny took the chance to walk a few steps away and take his phone out. He clicked on Shannon’s name and waited, but the phone immediately went to voicemail.

“Fuck.” He clenched his jaw. This was not exactly what he needed right now. “Fuck, Shannon—“

Daniel cleared his throat, Johnny looked back with a frown. Whatever this man had to say, he really didn’t care right now. But he walked towards him, still angry with his son’s mother, still angry at this asshole in front of him.

“Robby is in my house. He can stay—“

“No.” He answered. “You can’t just leave it there, can you?” He put the phone down, blinked. “You are training my son. Putting him against me. And now you want him to live with you? What the hell is wrong with you?”

At least, this time, he said nothing.

“And you were gonna leave just like that if I didn’t ask.” Johnny felt vile come up his throat. “I’m taking my son.”

“I don’t think he wants—“

“He’s sixteen! What is  _ wrong  _ with you?” He asked again. Daniel finally looked at him. “I don’t know what you are trying here, but you are the teacher. You have your kids, would you be fine with their fucking  _ teacher  _ taking them to live with them?”

There was no answer.

“Uh?”

“No.” 

“Good. I’m taking my son.” He shook his head. “Fucking asshole…”

The boy was not happy. 

Johnny had to resist the temptation to expose Daniel’s insanity to his son, but the only thing that mattered in that moment was to make him understand he wasn’t alone. In spite of his failures as a father, as a person, he could grow, and change, and be saved; put together in a new pot and start again.

This was starting again.

Daniel’s wife talked to him more than the man himself. Gave him a million numbers and invitations both of them knew were never gonna be taken, and once in the car, Johnny felt more tense than sitting in that living room of that ridiculous house without sense.

“Look,” Johnny swallowed. His heart was beating way too fast, “I know you don’t like this. This is not ideal, and I’m sorry about that.” He sighed. “But let’s make a deal.”

“About what?”

Johnny bit the inside of his cheek. He thought it over and over, but if he wanted to move forward—he needed to let go. Otherwise, he’ll always be stuck. Like cement.

“Two things.” They stopped at a red light. Johnny looked at Robby, the boy kept his eyes on his hands over his lap. “First, the second your mother gets back, if you want, you can go with her again.”

Robby chuckled, shaking his head. 

“You don’t have to, you can stay with me as long as you—“

“No, I’m taking it.” 

Another stab to the chest. Johnny nodded.

“Second… you keep training with LaRusso.” Robby’s fingers stopped moving. He saw him blink. “I won’t get in the way. I don’t want to know about it, and you won’t hear a word from me about my dojo.”

“Or Diaz.”

“That’s a difficult one,” Johnny started as the light changed to green, “he lives right in front of me.” He said, but immediately corrected: “Us.”

“ _ What _ ?” Robby looked at him. “He lives  _ there _ ?”

“Look—”

“Ugh.” He seemed angrier now. “Why couldn’t just let me stay with Mr. LaRusso?”

“Because I’m your father and he’s not.” He said, as firm as he could. He was getting tired. “And I’m sorry, I know how great he is and how much better he is, but guess what? You are still my child.”

“Funny how only until he started training me that mattered!”

Johnny shook his head. “Oh yeah? So what, you are telling me he casually found you and decided to train you?”

The boy said nothing, when Johnny looked at him, his eyes were opened wide and his face was looking pale. Because of course. 

He knew his spawn pretty well. No one was as petty as Johnny, no one was as manipulative as Shannon, their son was a clear masterpiece of all of it together.

“LaRusso is petty as fuck, but not that clever. Asshole didn’t even know you were my son that night in his house, did he?” He said, swallowing before continuing. “You wanna train with him, fine. But don’t pretend it didn’t have anything to do with me and Cobra Kai. How long did it take you to find him after I went looking for you that time before?”

Robby said nothing. Another red light made them stop, tense as ever.

“I saw you with him.” Robby said, Johnny frowned and looked at him. “I went—I went looking for you at the dojo. Mom said you told her you wanted me to live with you, and I—I don’t know why, I just—”

“What?” He murmured. The light changed again, Johnny kept driving but took a turn. 

This shit, this fuckery of misunderstandings and lies was ending tonight.

“What are you talking about?” Johnny insisted, but he heard a little sob and his breathing stopped. 

Biting his bottom lip, he kept himself from talking. 

He wasn’t proud of how many times he’d seen and heard his son cry, but it had been a while. Johnny had never known what to do. When he had been a kid, he would carry him in arms and hold him, just hold him.

Johnny knew he couldn't do that now. Robby wouldn’t let him, even if he tried.

“You were with your student in the parking lot and I just— I was so angry, I wanted to beat the shit out of him!” He said, Johnny nodded and tried to think of what his son had seen. “I knew all that act of telling mom you wanted to be there was bullshit, so I—“

“It’s not bullshit.” He interrupted, Robby didn’t look at him. Johnny kept driving. “I meant every word to her, and everything I’ve said tonight.” 

The boy cried harder, he could tell he was trying to hold himself together. Johnny swallowed, urging himself to drive faster and just—get there.

“Look, I know it’s not easy… if my father walked through my door tonight and said he wanted to be there for now on, I’d beat the fuck out of him. But I’m fifty, he’s probably a ghost by now. You and I? We still got time.”

“Time for what?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know where to start...” He sighed, looking at the parking line until he saw a spot. “But we gotta start somewhere.”

Robby looked out the window, frowning at the sight. 

He wondered if he knew where they were, why he had taken him here. They stayed silent as Johnny killed the engine, sighing deeply as he let himself relax in his seat. It didn’t do much, but he closed his eyes, and tried to gather his ideas together.

“You were born there.” He said. He heard movement and when Johnny opened his eyes, Robby was looking at the Hospital at the other side of the street. “And here…” He signaled the diner, Robby followed his finger and frowned. “Is where I sat drinking while it happened.”

The silence was even more charged now. 

Johnny swallowed, willing himself not to start crying. He needed to get this over.

“I sat there scared out of my mind because I was never supposed to be a father, but I was, and just as easy as to breathe, I had already fucked up.” 

The diner was still open. People were coming in and out, it was actually quite the place. Best burgers in the entire city. He often came here, sat down alone, and tortured himself with multiple scenarios where he had the balls to stand up and go see his son.

“That is the most painful—it’s the  _ worst _ thing I’ve ever done, and it hurts every day—“ He looked down, jaw tense as he tried not to cry. He closed his eyes, trying and trying. “I will always regret it.”

Robby made a strange sound, it sounded painful. Johnny looked at him, but he had turned his face away. His entire body was trembling, little sighs and sobs echoing in the car as he grabbed the car’s seat so hard, his knuckles were white.

He chewed on the inside of his bottom lip, letting a tear fall down his face.

“Sorry doesn’t even start to cut it.” Johnny admitted. “But I am. I’m sorry. I failed you since day one and I don’t have any excuses anymore.”

Robby nodded after a while, Johnny bit the side of his tongue. 

“I come here at least once a week. And I sit at the same table, looking out at that door. But even now, I never stand up and do the right thing.” His voice broke again, he swallowed a sob and kept going. “So I’m doing it now.” He said, slowly moving his hand to lay it on Robby’s shoulder. 

The boy leaned on his touch, but still wasn’t looking at him. Johnny stilled himself, this was a start.

“I love you.” He said, he meant it, always had. “I’m sorry I’m a fuck-up. I’m sorry I wasn’t there before, but I’m here now, and I’m not going anywhere. You hear me?” The boy nodded. “Good.” He cleared his throat. “Look at me.”

Robby shook his head no. Johnny sighed.

“Come on. Look at me, son.”

Slowly, Robby turned. His face was red, a vein popping in his forehead. His eyes were clear, filled with tears, hair sticking on his wet cheeks. 

Johnny moved on his seat, drying his face with both hands—Robby was still a boy, to Johnny’s eyes he was that little eight years old that cried because he couldn’t stay the weekend with his dad.

Like then, Johnny dried his face until there were no more tears running down his cheeks. He cradled his little face and smiled at him. The tip of his nose was red, there were more tears welled in his eyes, but the air felt softer.

“So, we have a deal?”

The boy still looked unsure. Johnny didn’t blame him.

“But you can’t talk shit about Mr. LaRusso.” Robby murmured, voice tiny and shy.

He took a deep breath, he could do that. “I’ll do you one better,” he swallowed, “if—and it’s just IF. If you don’t feel comfortable with me after a while—I’ll let you stay with him.”

Robby’s eyes opened wide, he blinked a couple of times before nodding. Johnny took away another tear with his thumb.

“I can’t… I can’t cut out Miguel from my life,” he said, Robby frowned at the name, “and I know you won’t cut LaRusso from yours.” The boy looked up at him again. “So let’s make this a pact: we don’t let the rivalry ruin us. That’s my problem, and my problem only.”

His son seemed to think about it. After a while, he nodded again.

Johnny smiled at him, caressing his face with both thumbs.

This was all he ever wanted.

“You still can’t talk shit about him, though.” Robby reminded him.

Johnny sighed. “Fine. I won’t mention Bambi, then.”

Robby’s lips curled, he was notoriously trying not to smile. So Johnny did for the two of them. He massaged his cheeks slightly and sighed, feeling lighter than before, as if dust had been shaken from his heart.

His kid didn’t say a word as they drove away, but it didn’t feel awkward or tense anymore. Johnny wasn’t stupid, he knew it would still take some time—it may not even work out. But he needed to try, he needed Robby to know he had a father and he cared.

Tomorrow, he’ll talk to Miguel. He’ll talk to the entire dojo—they needed to know who Robby was, he needed his life to make sense.

Robby quickly gathered a few things from his mother’s apartment in the dark, and locked the door carefully as they left. They were in his home now and there was something akin to excitement filling Johnny’s veins as they cleared the room that was always supposed to be Robby’s together. 

He saw the boy stop to look into boxes, slowly going through things he hadn’t seen in years. He didn’t say anything but Johnny caught him with old drawings and toys in his hands, curiosity all over his face, little smiles that were never there when he was around.

“Is that a bonsai?”

Johnny looked back from the closet, Robby was standing near Laurie, looking at it as if it couldn’t be real. He blinked a couple of times, feeling odd about the whole thing for some reason.

“Yeah.” He said, holding the bedsheets they’ve been looking for. 

“It has a name!” Robby said, it felt like he was talking to himself. He saw him pass a finger through the little sign Aisha had made for it. “Laurie?”

“Laurel, actually.” Johnny sighed. “But… I guess it has pet names, too.”

Robby snorted, Johnny hadn’t heard him laugh in a very long time. His shoulders were shaking as he looked around until his eyes landed on the bonsai guide Miguel had written down for Johnny. There was no way for his son to know who had made it, but Johnny looked away anyway.

Guilt rubbed its pawns on his back. This place had more of Miguel than it had of Robby, his life had more of his students than it had of his own son and Johnny had needed another man to tell him his son needed him.

The boy didn’t say anything else, but he left the room smiling, as if seeing the tree told him secrets and assured him it would be okay.

Maybe it would at the end.

Johnny sighed as he left Robby’s new room, the boy was finishing unpacking the things he had brought with him and seemed happy to hear him say they would go for more of his things tomorrow morning and find a way to bring in his furniture if he wanted.

He walked slowly to the living room, the small areas that fade all together and build this place he had lived in for ten years and so. 

For the first time, it felt like an actual place someone lived in. 

There was no dust, no trash on the floor, flies, or even the smell of alcohol.

Every piece of furniture was in its place, all lights functioning as they should, food in the fridge, neighbors in front that knew him, his son in his own room, the noise of him moving around echoing softly in the tiny hallway.

For the first time, Johnny didn’t feel like part of the furniture.

* * *

As the days passed, things started to change and grow again.

First, he dealt with Daniel’s annoying ads and his student’s curiosity.

Apparently, the internet could tell people who his family was, and before Johnny could tell the dojo who his son was, Hawk and Miguel were confronting him and he had felt—it felt like an accusation, and attack.

He wasn’t proud of his initial reaction.

But his son was in his own class by the time Kreese was done torturing him about Daniel training him, and so he decided he had another kid to talk to.

Robby was with him. He may not teach him karate, but his son was safe in his house, and he would look after him no matter what.

It was hard to put into words what he had been through as he failed Robby over and over again, but Miguel listened to him in silence, a serious expression on his face as he showed way more understanding and compassion Johnny had ever gotten from an adult before.

The boy smiled at him, nodded his head as he asked if he could forgive the omission of who his son was, if he could be cool with Robby being around. And then—another bad decision.

At the time, it didn’t seem bad at all.

The Valley Fest had been a success for them. He stood there, watching his students show off as people cheered for them. It felt so nice, to have people recognize their hard work, see through Daniel LaRusso’s insults to find out just how good his kids were with him in front. 

It had felt good to look between all the people and find Daniel’s face, the shocked expression with that tingle of something more in there. That one thing that had always been between them, that made the man move and want to touch Johnny, that gave him the tree as their fingers touched for more than necessary against his chest.

But Johnny saw it on Robby’s face at the end. Where things had gone wrong.

It wiped away the smile, and he wondered if his son would even be there when he got home.

He had searched for him at the fest, had sighed in resignation as Miguel tried to put on a sympathetic smile. The boy left with the others, talking about celebrations and whatnot. Kreese had wanted to drag him to drink for the night, but Johnny had said no, and drove straight home.

Robby was sitting on the sidewalk of his parking spot. He stood, waiting as Johnny parked and slowly got out the car.

“You couldn’t just be a decent human being for once, couldn’t you?” Robby said before he could shut the car’s door.

Johnny took a deep breath.

“He insulted my students.”

The boy scoffed, there was something way too similar to Daniel in his way of doing so— Johnny didn’t want to look much into it.

“Are you kidding me? You seriously just see what you want! What the hell are you talking about?”

He closed the door, walking towards him.

“Look,” Johnny stood in front of his son, “if he wants to play dirty, that’s fucking fine. But he can’t go and insult my students. It’s supposed to be between us.”

“For real? After what you guys pulled today?”

Johnny shrugged. “That’s business! We made a better show, no insults needed.” 

Maybe he shouldn’t be saying these things, Robby was the teenager not him. But he was so tired already— no matter what he did, Robby’s weird worship of Daniel was starting to feel like too much.

“When did he insult your bunch of fucking assholes? When?!”

“Hey!” Johnny stepped in, taller than his son again once on the sidewalk. The boy stood still, chest out, chin up. “What did we say about not letting this shit get between us?”

“Don’t you realize that what you do affects me? You can’t let me have anything, you have to ru—“

“I can’t let you have anything?” Johnny snorted. This was by far the most ridiculous fight he had ever had with his son. “ _ He _ can’t let  _ me _ have anything! Ever since I opened, he’s been a pain in the ass and every day gets worse!” He swallowed. “I wasn’t doing anything to him or his dojo, but he’s the one always,  _ always _ searching to antagonize me.” 

He walked away, surprised that Robby had actually shut his mouth. As he opened the door of his apartment, he heard Robby turn.

“What do you mean?”

Johnny turned, feeling suddenly so tired.

“I opened a dojo, he started a crusade to what? Stop me from having something?” He shook his head. “Apparently, he had something to do with our rent at the mini-mall being raised. Did you know two people had to close up because they couldn’t afford the rent anymore after years of having their business?” 

The boy said nothing. 

“Of course not, it means nothing to him. Just like it means nothing to call a bunch of sixteen years old snakes and whatnot on a commercial, or try to ban Cobra Kai from All-Valley, make fun of me in front of the committee, and his friends, or try to take you in without telling me or your mother first like a fucking creep.“

He sighed deeply, throwing his head back as he looked up at the sky. The stars were nice, the weather too— and yet.

Yet, here they were,with the weight of the past on them. Daniel’s secrets he couldn’t talk of, not even to the man himself.

“Shit.” He swallowed. “Look, I’m not a saint. I beat the shit out of him a couple of times. But we were kids, all of us. He’s a fucking fifty-something bitch that can’t stand someone having something he doesn’t.”

Robby was still frowning, he was notoriously angry. Johnny watched as he seemed to actually think about it, and it felt  _ good _ .

It felt good to finally have someone think of what he said, consider his side of the story, maybe see how strange all this had been.

“Robby, I’m sorry.” He finally said. “He insulted my students. He’d do the same if it had been me. Hell, he would probably sue me if I pulled some shit like that.”

The boy looked up, there was still hurt in his eyes, but he walked towards the door at last.

“This is not gonna work…” Robby said, Johnny felt his heart wrinkle. “There is no way… there’s no way what our dojos do won’t affect us.” 

He swallowed, turning to open the door.

“Maybe.” Johnny admitted. “You’re angry. I get that. But today’s presentation wasn’t about you.” He held the door open for his son, but Robby stood in the entrance, waiting for the rest of it. “It was between us, I didn’t do it to hurt you.”

Robby blinked, he still had that angry expression on his face, but at least he wasn’t throwing hurtful words anymore.

“How do I know you’re telling the truth this time?”

_ This time _ . Johnny looked down.

He knew perfectly this could happen, but—Johnny wasn’t ready for it. 

Carmen had told him recently that he needed to persist with his son, understand his idea of him was tainted by years of pain— 

She was right.

“You’ll have to trust me.” Johnny sighed. “There’s no other way.”

“Tell me a secret.” Robby said.

Johnny frowned. “What?”

“It’s something mom does. She says that to prove you can trust someone, you ask them a secret and you tell them one of yours.”

He knew that, he also knew where Shannon had gotten that from. Johnny took a deep breath as he remembered his mother doing the same— it was how he got a date with Shannon in the first place.

She had been in that dive bar eying him all night, and when he had finally approached her, she had playfully rejected his invitation, saying she couldn’t trust just anyone there.

_ “I’ll tell you a secret, that way you can trust me. But you have to tell me one, too. So I can trust you.” _

_ “Okay?” _

_ “I like ABBA.” _

_ “The disco group?” _

_ “Yep.” _

_ “Oh my god! Okay, okay… I was hoping you would talk to me tonight.” _

It had been good, when it was just the two of them. 

Johnny looked at their son. 

His son wanted to trust him, he wanted a secret that could show him how serious Johnny was. And maybe, if it was good enough, maybe they could finally start to move forward.

Swallowing again, he decided the only secret that could show his son how serious he was, was the one he didn’t have a name for.

“Okay.” Johnny said. He passed a hand through his hair and cleared his throat. “You have to tell me one of yours first.”

Robby looked down, thinking about it. He sighed, closing his eyes.

The boy looked up at him again after a while.

“I plotted to work for Mr. LaRusso to piss you off, and then thought of learning karate from him to hurt you. He doesn’t know that.”

So they were going for  _ genuinely _ serious. Johnny nodded, there was only one thing as real and serious that came to mind that could show this kid he was being more honest than he’d been to anyone.

“I like men.” He said. Johnny couldn’t help the smile on his face as Robby’s eyes opened wide in surprise. Only in surprise. “I’ve always liked men. You remember Ben? My…  _ roommate _ ?”

“You were dating uncle Ben?” 

Johnny smiled. It had been such a thing when it happened, he had been in a way better place than he had in years, and Ben had been nice.

He nodded, Robby’s face filled with recognition and something else Johnny couldn’t identify. Then, worrisome.

“So when mom used to call you… that… she was really insulting you and uncle Ben?”

“Fuck.” Johnny sighed. “Yeah, but that’s… not even accurate. I like chicks, too. Hell yeah, I like women.”

A tiny smile appeared on Robby’s lips. “So you are saying you are… bisexual?”

He frowned. “I don’t care about that, don’t have a name for it.”

“You don’t want to know?”

“Hey,” Johnny sighed, “it’s supposed to be a secret.”

Robby blinked, frowning deeply but nodding. He stood there, looking down at his sneakers. Johnny could tell he wanted to say more, maybe make more questions— but the boy sighed.

“Well, I…” He started. “Okay. I trust you.”

Johnny smiled right away. “Thank you.”

They got in. Johnny yawned as he walked to the kitchen to grab a beer when Robby stopped and looked at him on his way to his room.

“I’m sorry I yelled.” He said, Johnny smiled at him. “There’s… uhm. Nothing.”

“No, come on.” Johnny encouraged him. “Said it. It’s okay.”

Robby licked his lips, clearing his throat.

“I— I know you don’t like him, but I mean it when I say that Mr. LaRusso is actually great.”

“Robby, even if he was, we just… don’t get along.”

The boy shrugged. “I’m not sure his beef is actually with you.” 

“What are you saying?”

“I think it’s sensei Kreese. And Cobra Kai.” He sighed. “ _ His _ Cobra Kai.”

_ Are you sure he’s dead? _

_ He pretended to be dead… In 1985. _

_ … harassing and manipulating me for months. _

_ And I fell for it… I fell for it because I was always alone. _

_ I thought someone was on my corner. _

Johnny looked down, considering it as he remembered the sight of a very nervous and vulnerable Daniel LaRusso sitting on the trunk of his car, asking about Kreese and that Silver guy. The things he had told him about them.

“I don’t… I don’t like sensei Kreese either.” Robby confessed.

It made him frown, a bad feeling pooling in the pit of his stomach. Johnny nodded at his son, putting a hand on his shoulder.

He had only talked to him about the good things Kreese brought to his life. Only once he told him of the disappointment he ended up feeling for this man, but never mentioned why.

“Has he said anything?” Johnny wondered aloud, he looked at Robby. “Has LaRusso told you anything about Kreese? Aside from....” He gestured widely.

Robby shrugged. “Just the usual… I just get the feeling it’s personal. Not only about… business and philosophies.” He sighed. “I don’t know.”

It was personal. Johnny should have known better—Daniel lashing out made sense.

His son was just a kid. He shouldn’t be trying to uncover the mess they were, try to fix it.

Johnny let go of him, the boy seemed awkward and tense still, but the yelling had stopped. He took a deep breath as he saw him walk away and heard him get into his room.

The smart phone was vibrating in his jeans’ pocket, but Johnny ignored it as he walked towards the kitchen for a beer. He frowned at the sight of his fridge—he could swear he had bought two six-packs just a few days ago, there were way less Coors cans in here.

He should probably stop drinking this much.

All he had in mind the rest of the night was the things Daniel had told him, how the man had let him know shit Johnny was sure he had never told anyone else about—because if someone would understand, it was the boy Kreese tried to murder.

The revelation knocked the air out of his chest.

Johnny closed his eyes hard, seeing colorful stars and ants when he opened them again.

Daniel had trusted him and he had betrayed that trust right away, like a movie villain.

* * *

“Something wrong?”

Johnny looked up, Robby was walking towards him with his bag on his shoulder. He had been getting way too early to LaRusso’s, but he promised to not ask questions—and he didn’t really wanna know. He looked back at the bonsai on his table.

“I…” He sighed. “With all that has been happening, I forgot to give it to Miguel.”

His son sat down, looking at the tree with curious eyes.

“What about it?” He licked his lips. “Why do you give it to him?”

“He— cuts the leaves and all that.” 

“Oh, pruning.” He sighed. “You don’t know how to do it?”

“Yeah— the first time was a disaster, so… he does it. It’s easier that way.”

Robby laughed at his side, shaking his head. He looked at the tree, moved it to watch it closer with a little smile. 

How many of these he saw in that weird dojo he went to? Daniel must have a room filled with them.

“You have the scissors? It’s not that hard. I’ll show you.”

He sat there looking at his son, listening to him as he showed how to cut each leaf and branch, talking about buds and soil, and how it was important to first imagine what you want the tree to look like, concentrate on that image with your heart.

It reminded him of his home when he was a child, of his mother sitting in that garden as she talked to her flowers and showed Johnny the significance of each, their color, why it was important for him to know.

Robby’s eyelashes touched his cheek the same pretty way his mother’s did when she closed her eyes. His serene and soft expression was exactly like hers, the way his hair fell on his forehead as he concentrated.

He should have met his grandmother.

She had been so excited to learn he was coming, the first months of Shannon’s pregnancy were fantastic, a dream he used to visit again and again during the many years to come as he drank. 

Johnny had engraved in his head the image of her sitting on his couch with Shannon’s head on her lap as they laughed together. He saw them there, with Shannon’s hands on her round belly as his mother told her the many blessings of being a mom.

But just like it had come, it had gone. It had happened so fast, her illness getting in the way, becoming terminal in silence until it was too late. And it had robbed his son of his grandmother, the best person he had ever met.

“Okay,” Robby said, looking at him. “Do it yourself now.”

“Now?” He frowned, taking the scissors from Robby. “Fuck…”

“Come on—” The boy smiled, encouraging. “Just remember. Picture what you want it to look like, then just do it. Don’t think of how, don’t think of what if, just do it.”

He pictured it as it once was when Daniel gave it to him.

Johnny blinked a couple of times, slowly moving to cut a few small branches that shouldn’t get any longer. He moved unsure, but kept cutting where he thought it was needed. Buds and leaves, one by one, slowly shaping Laurie again.

He wasn’t sure for how long they had stayed silently working together, but Robby’s phone made a sound. He looked by instinct, seeing Daniel’s name on the screen and immediately looking away.

But Robby didn’t answer. He sighed and muted the call, turning the phone with its screen to the table as he left it there.

“Good, you’re doing well.” Robby said with a genuine smile after a while. “Look… maybe we should wire these branches here, to make sure it doesn’t lose its form.”

“How do we do that?”

“Uh, we need wire!” He moved his head to one side. “I’m running a bit late, but—maybe we can go get some when I come back?”

“Sure, sounds good.” Johnny smiled at him. “Thanks, son.”

Robby smiled again, looking back at the bonsai before saying goodbye.

He sighed, looking at what he’d done— it didn’t look bad at all, his son had shown a patience that was never there before. And he knew where the words came from, they echoed in his head with another voice.

Johnny bit his bottom lip.

He hated to even think of it, but… Daniel was good to Robby. His peace and balance shit was good for his son. 

And for him.

He tried not to think of it as classes went on, as he watched Kreese speak to his kids and the way they contradicted each other from time to time.

It was harder now, to move around with a man like him behind.

Johnny appreciated the help, the understanding even— but there was something here that smelled bad. He could tell of it as he moved between his students and saw them frown more than they seemed concentrated.

In the way Zack flinched when Johnny moved to correct his stance, how he didn’t stay to hang out with the other boys as he usually did, and how Aisha and Tory, the new girl, had also pretty much ran from the dojo after class.

“You really want my opinion?” Miguel said after Johnny asked. He only nodded. “I think… I think sensei Kreese is old.”

“What?” Johnny frowned as they walked towards the front door. “What about it?”

“His… his ideas are old fashioned.” He explained. “And not in a good way, like for example— you have old fashioned ideas that actually work just fine. Like… getting flowers for a date or saying things to one’s face.”

“So?”

“So, sensei Kreese is… straight up misogynistic. Sometimes.” The boy sighed, opening the door for the two of them. Johnny went out first. “He’s homophonic all the time, and kind of racist, too.”

“Yeah, I get that.”

“He lives in the past… in a way that can be dangerous.” Miguel said, closing the door and leaning into it as Johnny locked. “Like—he sometimes talks like if we were soldiers at war.”

“I know.”

“It can be confusing. Because while I agree those pussies from Miyagi-do need a kick in the ass… I don’t think we should be treating this thing between you and Mr. LaRusso as a  _ real  _ war. We aren’t assholes, right?”

“No, we’re not.” Johnny bit the inside of his cheek, thinking about it. “Have you noticed… I don’t know. Something weird between the others?”

Miguel shrugged, he followed Johnny as they walked towards the Challenger. Johnny was meeting Robby at their apartment, he wanted to grab a bite with him after buying whatever the boy needed for the tree.

For a second, he wondered if it could be a good idea to invite Miguel. Maybe if he got them to interact more often in public places where they couldn’t beat the shit outta each other, they could get to know the other—maybe he could have peace in his own building.

“I mean, I guess… Hawk has been bonding a lot with sensei Kreese.” The boy said once in the car, Johnny gripped the steering wheel harder as he spoke. “He now has some minions! But I don’t think he’s dangerous or anything.”

“Alright.”

“Zack had a thing, though.”

“What happened?”

“It doesn’t really have anything to do with Cobra Kai, but—” Miguel sighed. “So, Aisha said he told her that the boy he was crushing on found out and rejected him in a very public place and everyone was giving him shit for it on Facebook.”

Johnny shook his head, that explained it. “Fuck…”

“Yeah, Aisha and Tory tried to advise him but he’s been very upset.” He made a pause, then kept talking. “Though, it kinda weirds me out, because he used to tell us these things, you know? To us, the boys— we don’t have any problems with that.”

“Uhm. I don’t know, if I wanted advice on getting it with a guy, I wouldn’t go to more testosterone for that if there’s girls hanging around.”

Miguel chuckled, Johnny looked at him for a few seconds and saw him shook his head, he returned his eyes to the street and bit his bottom lip.

“Okay, so in this world were you, the macho sensei, would need advice to get over another man, you would prefer to talk with a girl instead of your friends?”

Shit. Fuck. What the hell was he getting into? Johnny swallowed and nodded.

“Yeah, man. They deal with assholes all the time. Why go to the assholes themselves? They won’t know what to say.”

They fell into silence. Johnny looked at the boy when a red light made him stop, Miguel seemed to be considering it. He looked back.

“Makes sense, I guess.” He said. “I hope it's that, I hope it’s not… him thinking he can’t come to us, you know? He’s our friend, our brother. We’ll kick the asshole if necessary.”

“Yeah.” Johnny sighed. “Just ask him next time, I— I noticed he’s not hanging out with you guys.”

“That’s what I mean too!” Miguel scratched his head fast, it made a loud sound as he looked confused. Johnny kept driving. “As far as I know, no one in the dojo has told him anything bad… so I have to wonder if it’s something that we did, maybe he’s upset with us.”

“You’ll have to ask him!” Johnny incisted. “I don’t know, what was that he called himself last week? He’s our token gay, we can’t lose him.”

Miguel laughed at that, probably remembering the way the boy had given himself the label as Aisha planned more ads for the internet. The kid was funny, knew how to laugh at himself without hurting— he was a winner and a badass.

“Tell him… I don’t know, I’ll let him wear that rainbow belt he wants in a video and then ask what’s wrong.”

“Oh, don’t give him wings.” Miguel laughed. “He’s gonna love that, yeah— for real, though?”

Johnny shrugged. “No.”

Miguel laughed again, shaking his head. 

By the time they were back to the apartments, Robby was sitting in Daniel's car’s trunk as they talked.

He took a deep breath at the same time Miguel did, swallowing as he thought how maybe the day he had planned for them wouldn’t get to be. Miguel looked at him, he grimaced at the boy, and both moved to get out at the same time.

“Hey!” Johnny greeted Robby, the boy nodded at him. “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, just…” Robby signaled at Daniel with his thumb.

“Oh!” The man blinked, looking at Johnny. “I— I wanted to talk to you.”

Johnny sighed, imagining the storm to come as he nodded. Robby stood up to leave them alone, clearly aiming for their apartment when Miguel called his attention. He blinked, putting his entire attention to the exchange.

The boy asked to talk, Robby looked at him with a deep frown… but nodded, walking towards him as they got farther apart from him and Daniel. He watched them walk as Miguel started to talk, gesturing with his hands as he did when he was both, nervous but serious about whatever he had in mind.

Would it be okay? He swallowed, remembering he had his own problem behind.

Johnny turned to face Daniel, the man looked… tired. So fucking tired.

“What the hell happened to you?” He couldn’t help but ask, Daniel shook his head. “That bad, uh?”

“It’s nothing.” He cleared his throat. “So, I was… Robby told me you guys had… a talk.”

Shit.

“Yeah?”

“And you said—” He took a deep breath, finally looking him in the face. “Doesn’t matter.” He murmured, probably to himself. “I think it’s really good that you guys talked.”

“Okay…”

“I just… I just wanted to apologize. For the other night.”

“Oh, I thought it was for calling me and my kids snakes.” He said, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“That’s not— not at all! If you took it that way, that’s your problem!”

“Save it, LaRusso. You’re a salesman, I know exactly what you were trying to do. You’re a fucking asshole.”

The man was frowning deep, but there was a red blush on his face that showed exactly what Johnny wanted to see: shame. At least he was concient he had been an ass to some kids he didn’t even know.

"I didn't... I didn't think of it like that."

"You're such a prick." He shook his head. "So?"

This felt wrong, but Johnny couldn’t stop it. It was almost a natural reaction, every time he saw Daniel, he lost sight of what was the right thing to do. He was the one that should be apologizing, having broken this man’s trust the moment he got the chance.

Yet—

Daniel bit his bottom lip, looking down.

“I’m sorry I acted up that day— when I told you about Robby. It was wrong.”

“Yeah, Okay…” Johnny swallowed. “Look, LaRusso—”

Daniel looked up at him, blinking a couple of times with a frown. There was a lot on his face, it was hard to understand what was it, if he wanted to say more or simply torture Johnny with his silence and his big dumb Bambi eyes.

He shook his head, sighing. "Don't get the kids into this again and we are fine." 

"Yeah, I'm so sorry—I really didn't think of that."

"Right."

Johnny bit the inside of his cheek, looking at the man in front of him.

Unlike his commercials and the public character, the man in front of him was real and had the world on his shoulders in a way that made it seem unfair in spite of all his fucking antics and dirty plays.

It looked like he was so tired, there were no more tricks he could pull off without losing something else, without losing himself. Because it was so not like the boy he met, like the man he’d seen last year, to lose sight of what he was aiming for.

They were both hot-headed. They were petty and stubborn, and one day one may finally shut the other up. But if things continued as they were, time would catch up with them before things were to finally end somewhere.

“I know you think I’m poisoning your son—”

“Jesus Christ—”

“Like I’m trying to put him against you or something, and I want you to know that—”

“Save it, LaRusso. I don’t wanna hear it.” He walked forward and away from him. “I have plans with my son, so… see you around.”

“I’m not doing that!” He said, Johnny ignored him as he walked towards his apartment.

Miguel and Robby were nowhere to be seen. If they didn’t come back soon, he suspected he may have Daniel outside his place saying nonsense after nonsense. He shook his head, taking out his keys as he heard the man walking towards him.

“It’s not—I’m not trying to like—ruin you or—”

“Oh you don’t, don’t you?” 

He turned around. 

“You are just actively trying to decide what is best for my son while also trying to sink my business, and what? Compete against my students with yours because… What is it here? What do you think it’s happening in my dojo? Who do you think I am? You don’t know me at all, man— I’m not some kind of movie villain.” He swallowed.

The pause felt longer than it actually was. 

“You’ve Kreese there!” Daniel reminded him. “Even after what I told you, what he did to you—”

Daniel closed his mouth with a click, Johnny frowned at the sight of his pained face. He had no right to look this pained, as if Johnny was doing all this on purpose just to hurt him. Daniel had no idea, he couldn’t possibly understand what it all meant to Johnny.

“You don’t know me either!” Daniel said, Johnny took a deep breath. He really needed to learn and shut the hell up, especially knowing this man would always react to whatever he did and said. “You can’t just stand there and throw all this shit at me as if you have given me any motives to believe you have changed at all!”

“I don’t owe you shit!”

“You never even apologized after the tournament!” He said; it made Johnny see red. “You just acted as if I didn’t exist!”

“You fucking won! And I almost died  _ because  _ of it! It ruined my college plans, my relationship with the only girl I ever truly loved, tainted the only thing that helped me get through the week! It ruined my life! What else did you want?”

Daniel’s eyes opened wider, if it was possible. He opened his mouth, then closed it. His face filled with something Johnny couldn’t identify— 

“You think I wanted that?” He said. His words echoed in the area. Johnny could hear his heart beating in his ears. “You really think that little of me…”

Johnny’s chest felt heavy at the sight of him, his head betraying him by showing that dream again and again—hammering every second of that man looking at him with the sun in his eyes into his mind as the one in front of him looked genuinely pained by his words.

Wasn’t he just so pathetic? Throwing the world’s pettiest excuses to this man that had only wanted to apologize? He had to wonder—why did he keep doing this to himself?

Daniel looked down, his breathing coming off in an even more difficult way. 

“I’m not gonna let Cobra Kai turn an entire generation of kids’ my daughter’s age into the bullies it always created. Not on my watch!”

“And who the fuck are you to do that, uh?” Johnny shook his head. “Fucking hero as always, can’t mind your own business. I’m starting to think you really believe life is all about you and you alone.”

“I’m—”

“You’re so selfish and blind to the rest of the world! You have the biggest fucking doe eyes and can’t see shit anyway!” 

Johnny swallowed.

“You can’t stand anybody else living their life if you can’t control the parts of it you don’t like. No wonder you are a salesman.” He spit, the venom of his own words feeling sharp in his throat as he spoke. 

“All you do is put on a show and pretend everything is neat and perfect as long as you can take and take while standing on a pile of all the things you’ve ruined in order to be tall!”

He looked like he wanted to fight. Like at any given moment he would throw himself at Johnny and hit him. And maybe he wanted that, maybe if they could beat the shit out of each other they would finally let go and there won’t be any more lingering stares and odd dreams to follow.

Daniel’s jaw was hard, he trembled in anger as they stood facing each other, and Johnny had never seen him this way: so visually angry at the same time his eyes told a very different story with the glassy way he was looking at him, tears welled up in them.

“I told Robby I wouldn’t hit you.” 

Johnny chuckled. “You’re lucky that kid cares about you, Bambi.” It sounded as if he was telling it to himself, but Johnny ignored it. “Go away, man. You’re not ruining our plans today.”

If he wanted to say anything else, he didn’t. 

He heard him walk away, loud and angry steps echoing in the parking area until a car was on and the man was finally gone. Johnny closed his eyes and sighed, unable to understand why he just—Daniel just made him lose his cool every single time.

Johnny had been an asshole. He was the one to blame for this round.

One way or another, the man always got every emotion out of him. All at once, like thunder and lightning in the middle of a storm in the open sea. He sighed, opening his eyes as he heard laughter to his left.

Johnny looked around until his eyes landed on Robby and Miguel walking close to each other. His son was saying something, then laughing at the sight of an annoyed Miguel, who pushed him aside, making him laugh louder.

His shoulders fell. The sight made his heart hurt nicely, the storm seemed like nothing as both boys jogged to catch up with him at his door.

* * *

He dreamt of brown eyes and toothy grins.

He saw the beach where they met, but it was no longer night and the sun was coming up.

It had been a while since Johnny last had that dream… but it was the same and the same.

Always following him, always on his mind.

The same man, in the same beach he hadn’t been to in the longest time.

Johnny dreamt of big brown eyes and woke up in grief.

* * *

That Saturday, Robby put his phone on the freezer, and opened the door before Miguel knocked.

“Good morning, sensei.” Miguel said in passing, walking behind Robby towards the hallway.

“Good…” He heard Robby’s room’s door open, “morning?” then close.

Johnny blinked a couple of times, unsure of what was supposed to be happening.

He stood, ready to go look what was going on when he heard loud music coming out the room and Johnny frowned.

Back when he was their age, loud music with a friend could only mean one of three things: 

  1. New album release
  2. Sparring session
  3. Sex



A and C didn’t seem likely with these kids. Johnny walked slowly towards the door and stood there, waiting to hear something that could tell him what kind of preoccupation he would be dealing with for the day.

When he heard the first “ugh” and “fuck”, the sound of “hiii-yah!” and blocking kicks, he smiled and walked into his own room.

He took Laurie and the first aid kit, and sat down at his table with the TV on, settling to tend to the tree that brought his two kids close to him, waiting for whoever would be the first to come out with a bleeding nose.

Laurie’s green reminded him of Robby’s eyes. He cut a few unfortunate leaves, and sighed at the sight of brown in its branches that reminded him of something else, someone else.

_ Earthy colors _ , his mother had called them— green and brown, the colors of life. 

The tree had grown, its soil had changed. 

So did his apartment, now loud and lived in: Robby’s shoes in the living room and a bag of cookies his son loved in the kitchen’s counter. 

A polaroid of him and his mother on the fridge, a sticky note with things to buy in the same door.

Music he didn’t listen to in his hallway, the loud sound of fighting between laughs and petty insults only teens can make.

Johnny sighed with a mouthful of what ifs, a frown in his face, fingers frozen in the process of pruning his little tree.

If he had talked with LaRusso after the tournament, had resentment and regret numb him for the longest time? 

Would they be on better terms? 

Had they become friends, would his son training with Daniel be different, meant something good?

Would Robby call Daniel “uncle” like he did his friends, the guy that had been his partner?

A phone was ringing in the kitchen.

Johnny eyed the fridge and wondered if he should leave his son’s phone there.

After the third call, Johnny stood and took it out. He glanced at the screen where the name  _ Sam _ flashed, but he put it on the counter, screen turned down.

It sounded a couple of times more, then peace and the sound of rock coming from his son’s bedroom alongside hits and kicks.

He wasn’t sure how long it had been, but Robby came out with a bloody lip and nose while Miguel followed with a black eye. 

“Seriously?” He asked the two of them.

“We solved our problems!” Robby answered, Johnny shook his head. “Like men!”

God, Carmen was gonna kill him.

“Alright, and who won?”

Both boys looked at each other. Robby passed Miguel a glass with water, slowly walking to sit down between him and Johnny. He saw them smile at each other, then look at him.

“No one.” Miguel said.

“Oh, come on!” Johnny incisted, Miguel laughed and shook his head.

“Think of it like Rocky III, you don’t know if Apollo or Rocky won.” Robby said.

“Hey, Rocky said Apollo won in Creed, so…”

“Then you’ll have to wait 30 years to know.” Miguel shrugged.

Johnny arched both eyebrows, laughter filled the place as he shook his head but let it be. If they wanted to keep their business a secret, well—whatever had happened, it couldn’t be so bad if it let him live here, in this moment.

They continue talking shit and teasing him as they sat at the table with the TV on.

He saw as Miguel dragged Laurie closer to them, checking it as he listened to Robby. His son passed a hand over the leaves distractedly, holding one between his fingers while taking the scissors with his free hand. 

Robby’s phone kept ringing behind them, but their voices filled the emptiness and they sat there with the little tree between them.

_ There’s nothing else like this _ , he thought. 

There really was nothing else but this.

* * *

Johnny frowned at the sight of Hawk and his minions sitting on Daniel’s dock.

His phone had gone up in the middle of the night.

The thing should’ve been on his night table, but it wasn’t. Johnny opened his eyes slowly, adjusting to the darkness of his room as he sighed deeply, his other hand palming around his bed until the cold of the phone touched skin.

He looked at the screen, brain barely registering the name in it.

With a frown, Johnny had answered the call.

_ “LaRusso? It’s past midnight...” _

_ “Sorry to wake you up, John.”  _ He sighed.  _ “We got a problem.” _

Johnny had sat on his bed with a frown. Daniel sounded serious… and pissed.

_ “I’ve some of your students sitting in my dojo’s yard, a couple of vandalized cars and a sign. Do you know anything about this?” _

_ “What?!” _

He had heard Daniel talk, the tired tone of his voice echoing in his head as Johnny stood and dressed. 

All the way to the dojo, all Johnny could think about was how out of control everything seemed to be. 

It was all a fucking circle, over and over again, someone doing something stupid that lead to a response, that lead to another response, and so on—for  _ years _ .

Thirty years of this was more than enough.

The place didn’t look so bad, toilet paper here and there, but the cars had taken the rage of the kids as they’ve been painted and whatnot. The sigh may take a while to clean up. But these kids, he—he had  _ failed _ again.

“What did they say?” He asked, the man walked slowly towards him after just standing behind, watching him. “What did they say, LaRusso?”

“Nothing, just that you got nothing to do with this.” He answered. “Hard to believe, all things considered, but… I think it’s true.”

“Jeez, thanks.” Johnny sighed, covering his face with both hands as he prepared himself for what was to come. “I’ll take care of it.”

He saw him nod at his side from the corner of his eye, Daniel moved inside and Johnny gave another step into the back yard, but—

“LaRusso,”

The man looked back at him. He looked sick, more tired than Johnny had ever seen him, like he could really use some sleep, vacations. A good fuck.

Robby said his sensei had been weird lately, that his daughter said her parents weren’t doing so hot and that they had even sent her younger brother away for the entire Summer in spite of the kid not wanting to.

He could see it now, the stress of long weeks of double work, whatever Daniel was carrying from home, the fact that he was sleeping here instead of his ridiculous cage of a house.

Johnny could see it in that sullen face, those tired eyes.

“Thanks for calling me and not the police.”

Daniel shrugged. “I’m tired.” He admitted. “Just get over with it, please.”

Johnny nodded, understanding how much the man needed them out of his property as soon as possible. He sighed as he looked back at the teens, each looking at their hands, heads hanging in shame. 

Hawk with his back hunched, looking away when his eyes caught Johnny’s.

There was so much rage in that boy, he should have seen it coming—that somewhere down the line, something like this could happen.

Soon, they were pointing fingers and blaming each other, notoriously scared of what he’ll do. But Hawk didn’t say a word, only sank more on himself as he was thrown around as the author of their little number.

Johnny sighed, unsure of if it was the right thing, but—it was late and dark, and Daniel was at the door again, leaning his back on the frame with his arms crossed over his chest, looking done.

“That’s enough.” Johnny said with a firm voice. “I’m not—I’m not gonna tell your parents. For now.” He sighed at the way they all seemed relieved at his words. “But you are cleaning this mess. You’re not going back to our dojo until this place is perfect again.”

“Right now?” Someone complained.

Johnny looked back at Daniel at the door. He needed to talk to him first. The man shrugged, and Johnny made a gesture with his hand to indicate the boys to zip it as he talked with the other sensei. 

He walked back to him, this time noticing the way he was dressed—old pants, even older white t-shirt, way too big hoodie. It was—It was a good look on him but not a good thing to think about right now.

“They’ll clean up.” Johnny said with a sigh. “It can be done right now—”

“No…” Daniel moved his hands, touching Johnny’s chest for three seconds before he let them hang at his sides. “No, I’m so tired, I—I need to sleep.”

“Then first thing in the morning. They need to learn to respect a dojo.”

Daniel looked up at him, this time without surprise or curiosity, something just—he couldn’t describe it for the life of him. His big eyes just stared at Johnny for long seconds, no smile or grimace, just him searching for something in his face.

If he found it, he couldn’t be sure. But Daniel nodded. “7 AM, my kids come at 8:30.” He said.

Johnny nodded. “Good.”

He could drive Robby even.

Johnny looked at them again, shaking his head. Goddammit.

“I’m sorry.” He said. He felt Daniel move. He was—funnily balancing on his feet with his arms crossed, his eyes lost in Johnny’s chest. “I’m sorry they did this. I don’t know what they were thinking.”

The man nodded without looking again. “We need to stop.”

“Yeah.”

He stopped moving, blinking a couple of times. Daniel looked up, trying to smile. It looked sad.

“But it’s so much fun…” He said between an almost timid laugh. “What are we doing wrong? Many teams keep rivalries and nobody gets hurt. What is wrong with us?”

Johnny frowned at his words, thinking of the last time he thought this  _ fun _ .

Back when Daniel visited his dojo for the first time, yes—he had thought this is it, this was the flame he needed to keep alive in order to triumph again. The only thing that was constant and real in his life, the thing between him and Daniel LaRusso.

But somewhere between high rents and his son eating at another man’s table, it got twisted. 

It wasn’t just a rivalry anymore, it was—it was hate and the past, and things left unsaid, lingering stares from the hallways of school to the parking lot, reading under the sun and knowing he was being watched.

Resentment rooted in inadequacy, failure, shame and guilt. Insecurities tangled in misunderstandings, secrets that crush you under their boot.

The two always on opposite sides, opposite rooms, but still rotating each other, always pulled to the other by something nobody could explain. Gravitating to the other in search of that flame, that spark.

It was here now, too. In his son and the tree in his room, Miguel’s love for this man’s daughter, the karate committee, everywhere Daniel put his hand on, included him.

Johnny sighed, making Daniel look up at him again. “We’ll figure it out.”

“Uhm,” Daniel blinked a couple of times. “Okay.”

He nodded again before walking back to the kids, telling them the plan.

They were to be here at 7 AM, not a minute late. They were to clean up and apologize to sensei LaRusso for what they’ve done and how much worse it could have gotten had Daniel not been home. And if they didn’t present in the morning, they shouldn’t even bother trying to go back to Cobra Kai.

“This is an asshole move.” He said, the boys were looking up at him. “Disrespecting another man’s dojo is not the way to win, coming to an empty dojo in the middle of the night like rats it’s a coward’s way. Are you cowards?”

“No, sensei.” Hawk was the only one to answer.

“Are you cowards?”

“No, sensei!” They all finally answered.

“Right, then show you aren’t by facing the consequences of what you’ve done.” He took a deep breath. “I’ll be here too.” Johnny nodded at them. “Go home now, all of you. I want you all at 7!”

“Yes, sensei!” 

But Hawk remained sitting as the others went. 

Mitch looked back as if waiting for him, the boy shook his head, and the other went away. Johnny followed them with his eyes as they walked slowly towards the entrance where Daniel stood, he saw them stop in front of him—for Daniel’s expression, they must have been apologizing already.

His shoulders fell as he saw Daniel nod, give a tiny smile as one bowed, making the others do the same before leaving. 

The man looked at him, eyes asking if everything was okay. Johnny moved his head slightly, hoping he’ll understand—something was going on here. 

So he sat down at Hawk’s side, trying to think fast on what to say, how to get the boy to talk. But before he could do anything, the kid was looking at him with a deep frown.

“I don’t understand.” He said, Johnny blinked. “You told us these pussies couldn’t get away with their shit, and now you’re mad at us? They disrespected our dojo first, remember? Called us names, tried to sink us!”

“Yeah, he did.” Johnny said, licking his front teeth inside his mouth as he thought of what to say. “But you know, this is way too far.”

“What?”

“Commercials, shit like that.. That’s business. This is vandalism.” He sighed. “I’m not training criminals. Am I?”

Hawk frowned, looking down this time.

Looked from here, this close, he was just a boy. He had freckles on his neck, a tiny nose, cheeks that still had a gentle roundness to them, a face that was just starting to get sharper. 

A frown too deep for someone his age.

“I know you’re frustrated, kid. Believe me, I would love to fix everything with a kick and a fist to some idiot’s face…” Johnny moved his head to one side, Hawk’s eyes were searching something on his feet. “But look at me. You and I know I’m a mess. Do you wanna end up like me?”

Hawk looked at him with disapproval in his face, as if he was offended Johnny dared talk bad about himself. It made his stomach feel funny—the way these kids looked up at him… he didn’t deserve it.

He needed to do better.

“Sensei—”

“Look, kid.” Johnny put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry I hid from you and the others who my son is. I know it bothered you, I know it still bothers you…”

Hawk looked away again. “Miguel said you took him to live with you.”

“I did.” He swallowed. “And he’s still here.” He signaled around. 

“But I promised him, and I promised Miguel—it changes nothing. He’s my son, and he made his choice. And you—” The boy finally looked at him. “You, Diaz, Robinson, Nichols—you made your choice too, and you chose  _ me _ .” 

He let his shoulders fall, this was surreal in a way—and yet, he felt lighter than he ever did in years. 

“You’re my students, my responsibility and I will always want the best for each one of you.”

He frowned, unconvinced still. How old was this kid? Sixteen? Johnny remembered himself at that age, already disappointed with the world, already thinking there was nothing beyond his days with his friends and his chick. 

Johnny blinked, wondering if the early morning and his tired estate were in play here, but he let his heart talk to his brain. He let this kid know what he truly thought, hoping it would be enough to help him understand, make him see.

“I love my son,” he put a hand on his chest, “that’s not gonna change. And you know what else it’s not gonna change?” He sighed. “You guys gave me a reason to wake up in the morning. You’ve taught me more than I’ve taught you. If I had the courage to take him in, it’s because of Cobra Kai, because of you and your mates.” 

He licked between his lips, sighing. 

“When I said I was a skinny little dork, I meant it. And for a long time I felt like that again, like old furniture—and then you guys came into my life. It changed everything!” He smiled. “Eli, you’re the bravest person I know. I don’t want to fail you, I don’t want you to… be like me.”

The boy blinked, his eyes had gone softer, the tip of his nose getting red. Johnny tried his best not to tense, to not look awkward—he never knew what to do when his son cried, he wasn’t sure of what to do when anyone cried.

But, he kept going. “You’re a badass as you are. You don’t need to prove anything.”

“But—” He shook his head. “You don’t know how it was before, it was—I need Cobra Kai, I need it.”

“I know, and you have it!” He put his other hand on his other shoulder, gently moving the kid to face him. “I’m here for you! Cobra Kai is there for you.” Johnny swallowed, the boy was finally looking up at him with tears in his eyes. “You don’t have to be a bully to be Hawk, Eli.”

Hawk blinked fast, taking away the tears he didn’t let out. He saw him visibly swallow, nodding his head quickly as if trying to scare away doubts and fears. The boy cleared his throat and looked up at him again, this time with a firm stand.

“Yes, sensei.”

Johnny smiled at him. “Next time, when you feel like breaking something—concentrate that anger into your fist like this,” he showed him the way Miguel had shown him. If it helped him, it could help this boy too, “and try to think clear, try to put all that anger there, and nowhere else.”

Hawk did a first with his right hand, practicing the suggestion, then looking at him again.

“Okay.”

“Right,” Johnny sighed. “It’s really, really late—we should get going.” He stood, the boy followed him as they walked towards the entrance again. “You should tell that hippie girlfriend of yours she may not see you in the morning.”

The boy stopped walking, Johnny looked at him. He had his eyes on the ground again.

“She dumped me.” He said.

Jesus fuck.  _ Of course _ . 

He swallowed, scratching his head as he got closer to the boy.

“She said she wouldn’t date a bully.”

“Uhm.” Johnny crossed his arms over his chest. “You know, when I was your age—I went through a bad break up. She moved on faster than I did, actually—I don’t think I ever moved on.”

Hawk looked at him with a weirded out expression, frown deep in his face.

Johnny smiled at him. “But you know, I… had changed a lot from the guy she liked.” He admitted. It was an epiphany he had just a few months back. “It wasn’t her fault, but I didn’t take it well. I broke things too, I punched people, became worse without her.” He shrugged. “And I was an idiot, because none of that would ever make me get her back.”

“So what would you do differently? How would you get her back now?”

“Honestly?” Johnny looked at him, Hawk nodded. “I would leave her alone. My mother used to say all we need to do is to give our girls space. Maybe if I spent more time with my friends having fun instead of being angry all the time, I would have met someone else. Maybe eventually she would have wanted to talk to me.”

“But I don’t want—I don’t want anyone else.”

“Man, she’s not the last chick on the planet.” He chuckled, walking with him towards a very tired Daniel. “It’s not the end of the world.” Johnny said, looking at the man.

There it was, the end of the world.

He had hated him so much for being with Ali. Looked from here and now, and not from when he was sixteen and angry, the end of the world didn’t seem so bad.

“Well, Demitri says he read somewhere it’s likely we’ve already met the person we’ll marry one day.” Hawk said, a tone of mockery in his voice.

Daniel shook his head. “Demitri says _ a lot _ of things.”

There was a tiny smile on the boy’s face. Johnny cleared his throat, Hawk gave another step towards Daniel.

“Sensei,” he started, Daniel stood firmer, blinking, “I’m sorry I disrespected your dojo.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t funny at all.” Daniel said. “Any reasons in particular?”

Hawk seemed to think of it, he shook his head.

“Retaliation.” He admitted. “But it won’t happen again.”

Daniel nodded. “Okay. It’s okay. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Hawk bowed slightly, Daniel nodded at him. He was about to leave when he turned back to look at Johnny.

“We—we came in Mitch’s car, and they just...”

“Here.” Johnny gave him his keys. “Get in the car, I’ll be right there.”

“Yes, sensei.”

They watched the boy enter the house, quickly walking to the entrance and into the car. But before he could do so, he looked back at them, back at Johnny.

“Sensei?” 

“What is it?”

He saw him make his hands into a fist, swallowing hard before looking up again.

“Demitri said sensei Kreese hit him in the face.” He said, Johnny’s eyes opened wide. “That’s why he—that’s why he wrote the review.”

“What?”

“I’m not—I’m not a snitch.” He said with a frown. “But Miguel said… Miguel thinks something’s wrong, and I couldn’t see it.” He looked down, shaking his head, then back up. “But you said we aren’t assholes, and—I don’t want to be a bully.”

He nodded, Daniel was a tense block at his side. Johnny entered the house, putting a hand on Hawk’s shoulder, massaging it slightly.

“It’s alright.” He assured him. “You did good.”

“He was in the dojo tonight.” The boy said. “He said… well, he said this was war, that I should strike after what happened at the Mall and Moon.”

Johnny arched an eyebrow. “What happened at the Mall?”

“Shit…” He cleared his throat. “We… we fought.” Hawk looked past him, to Daniel. “With Keene and Samantha.”

“Oh, I’ve heard about that.” Daniel said. “You guys lost.”

“Save it!” Johnny turned to Daniel, the man gave him a pointed look but stopped with the childish bragging.

“Sorry, sorry...” He said, clearly not meaning it. 

Johnny shook his head, he was dealing with two sleepy kids.

“You’re gonna get us all in trouble, man.” Johnny said with a frown. “Dammit, to the car!”

“Yes, sensei!”

Johnny sighed, looking as the boy ran outside. He turned around to face the other man who was playing with the zipper of his hoodie. Daniel looked at him, the silence between them was slightly awkward, charged with so much unsaid shit and something Johnny couldn’t quite touch.

“Well, I’ll see you in the morning too.”

“Yeah.” Johnny said, clearing his throat. “Shit, man—I don’t know how the fuck this happened.”

Daniel looked like he had a few ideas, but for once kept his mouth shut. He shrugged.

“Just say it, goddammit. I know you’re dying to say it.”

Daniel smiled at him, it almost reached his eyes. “I told you so.” Johnny shook his head, but not even this small victory lifted Daniel’s spirit.

He wasn’t happy about being right for once. Johnny saw him swallow and bit his bottom lip before looking up with a sigh. 

“I can’t believe you let Kreese back into your life after what he did to you.”

“For real,” Johnny sighed, “what is it to you?”

Again, he didn’t get an answer.

Instead, Daniel walked in, sliding the door closed behind him with his eyes on Johnny.

He had a strange look, one Johnny didn’t have a name for but was making him nervous— it was making his stomach do strange things, his blood running hotter in his veins as the man walked slowly towards him.

Daniel stood there, closer to Johnny than he’d been in the longest time.

It reminded him of High School. November in school, the little space Daniel would leave between them as he taunted him. History class and the smell of wet grass.

“I understand.” Daniel said. His voice was so soft, Johnny was sure he wouldn’t hear him if he wasn’t this close. “I really do.” His eyes went around Johnny’s face again, they stopped on his chin. “He’s like a father to you—”

“LaRusso—”

“but he’s not good for you.” He looked up. “He’s not good for your students either.”

“You don’t know that…”

Daniel frowned. “I do.” He blinked. Johnny could feel his breathing so close, they were just breathing the same air. “I do. I’ve been there, too. Remember?”

There were many things Johnny wanted to say in that moment, things he should’ve said days ago. He sighed, swallowing before licking his lips.

“I’m—” Johnny cleared his throat, his voice had sounded out of breath. “Look, what I said the other day, what I did—I didn’t give Kreese another chance to spite you or something.” He said, Daniel walked away slightly. “It’s just…”

“What?” Daniel blinked, sounding demanding. “Make me understand, Johnny. Because obviously, that didn’t work out. And I really need a reason to not believe you’re a lost cause.”

_ Why?  _ He wanted to ask so badly, but Johnny suspected he wouldn’t get an answer for this one either.

He shook his head instead. “Man, if—It all sounded so real. I really though—I don’t know.”

The truth was that he had wanted to believe he had changed. Because if a man like Kreese could change, so could Johnny. If he could have another chance, then Johnny deserved his too.

Daniel looked at him for long seconds, looking around his face. Whatever he saw there made him stand firm, eyes opening in recognition.

“Okay.” He murmured and, somehow, Johnny knew what he meant. “You take care of that, alright? The kids don’t deserve that.”

“Yes.” Johnny said.

The man looked down again, then went away with a sigh.

Johnny blinked a couple of times.

“It’s late.” Daniel reminded him. “Come on, I’ll walk you out.”

As they walked in silence, the house seemed infinite.

“This place is weird.” Johnny said just to fill the silence. “How can you sleep here, Bambi?”

“God, if you call me Bambi one more time…”

“What?” Johnny smirked at him as they reached the door. “You’re gonna fight me?”

“I’ll kick your ass.” Daniel answered with his usual cocky smile, looking like himself for a second. “Where it came from anyway?”

He licked his lips, chest feeling heavy as he looked at Daniel’s face. 

In what moment had he become  _ Daniel  _ and not  _ LaRusso _ ? When was he promoted from  _ asshole  _ to  _ Bambi _ ? Johnny sighed, shrugging.

“Biggest doe eyes I’ve ever seen.” He admitted. He really was tired. “See you in the morning, Bambi.”

“Would you stop?” He sighed, but there was a slightly pink blush in his cheeks.

He pretended to think about it, leaning on his face a little, once again way too close like when they were younger and even more hot-headed.

“No.”

Daniel groaned, pushing him away with his entire hand firm on his chest. 

Johnny looked at him one last time at the front door, his tired face was looking pale and the bags under his eyes seemed bigger. 

He couldn’t help but wonder if he’ll dream of him again tonight as he drove with Hawk sleeping at his side. The radio was turned on, the soft melody of REO Speedwagon coming out the speakers as he waited at a red light.

_ My life has been such a whirlwind since I saw you _

_ I've been running around in circles in my mind _

Johnny shook his head.

_ I can't fight this feeling anymore _

_ I've forgotten what I've started fighting for _

_ And if I have to crawl upon the floor _

_ Or come crashing through your door _

_ Baby, I can't fight this feeling anymore _

This man was driving him crazy.

* * *

Daniel had been looking at his lips, not his chin.

He’d been so close, so close Johnny could smell him, his earthy scent and soft cologne.

He’d been looking at his lips.

* * *

Getting rid of Kreese was not as hard as he thought it would be.

Johnny watched him all day after he spent part of his morning looking at his kids cleaning up Miyagi-do, making sure his son wasn’t about to pick up an unnecessary fight, watching as Daniel put on a smile and his best salesman face for the day.

The man had been walking around with him, had been way more gentle to these boys than he’d been the night before, encouraging them to work and think why they were made to do so.

It pissed off Robby, made his daughter roll her eyes. Johnny realized soon enough as Daniel made him put sandwiches on plastic plates that it was also a lesson for them. And for him.

_ We need to stop. _

_ What are we doing wrong? _

It was a start.

He could still see the tiredness in him, but he was a good actor—the man truly knew how to mask his feelings and needs. It was—interesting to see.

But Kreese, he was filled with the same old tricks, the same old masks.

Johnny watched him as he talked to his students, contradicting Johnny’s teachings from time to time, masking it with poetic words if one of the kids questioned it or realized the contradiction. He just watched and made up his mind.

“We need to talk.” He said as he entered his office. 

He looked around, suddenly aware of the little changes here and there. Kreese had even put up one of his war pictures. Johnny frowned at the sight.

“About what?”

“About the crap you’ve been putting in my kids’ head.”

Something smelled here. 

Kreese didn’t give him much of a fight and didn't seem surprised to see himself kicked out of Cobra Kai. His last words echoing Johnny’s head the rest of the week as he talked of regretting his decision, of making mistakes he would not find a way out of.

It took all of his self-control not to bark back and sound as hurt as he was feeling, to not lose his cool and break another mirror as he kicked this old man’s ass.

His heart was beating fast as he heard the front door close, the silence suddenly unbearable in his dojo with the afternoon disappearing in orange tones, giving the dark a chance to consume every shadow and his every thought.

_ He’s like a father to you but he's not good for you. _

_ He’s not good for your students either. _

_ I’ve been there, too. _

Daniel was on his mind. 

He stayed there as he talked to Bobby, as Robby insisted on staying alone in the apartment, as Rosa and Carmen promised to look after his son, as he left the place with a bad feeling pressing hard in his chest.

The boys waved at him as they stayed together in the parking area, turning to talk to each other as he turned in the car and drove away. The last thing he saw of them, Miguel had said something that made Robby push him in the shoulder, both laughing as they walked towards Miguel’s door.

_ What is it to you? _

Daniel didn’t have an answer for him even now. And neither did Tommy as he listened to Johnny’s late night rambles.

None of his friends had been fazed at the mention of his name, the story behind Robby training in Miyagi-do and how things were now between him and Miguel. 

Bobby had laughed, called it the will of the Lord or some shit, that guy that works in mysterious ways—and they’ve all agreed he did the right thing by getting rid of Kreese.

Tommy looked at him as Jimmy and Bobby slept, and there was a sense of finality in the air Johnny didn’t like. But he pushed it aside, decided to enjoy this as long as it lasted, as long as his eyes stayed open for his friend.

“It’s great Robby is with you.” Tommy said. “I remember when he was this tall,” he said as he showed the height with his hand in the air. A small boy. Seven years old Robby playing soccer. “He drove you crazy.”

“He still drives me crazy.” In all senses, he did. “I…” Johnny sighed. “I told him about Ben.”

Tommy’s eyes went big, eyebrows raising in surprise. The curiosity in his eyes was soon replaced with pride. Johnny looked down with warm cheeks, nervous as he always was when talking about this.

“And what did he say?”

“Not much. He just.. Accepted it.” Johnny swallowed, slowly looking up. “I’ve been thinking about it, he—I think he wanted to say something but didn’t.”

“Are you worried?”

No. 

Johnny frowned, still thinking of what that feeling was. 

Robby had surprise and recognition in his eyes as he spoke that night, sometimes pushed to know a thing or two when having dinner—he had asked when he realized, how he realized, if he had dated any other men aside from Ben.

_ “If you liked a guy right now, do you think it would still be a secret?” _

_ “It’s just that… you know it’s not a bad thing, right?” _

_ “It’s not a bad thing. It’s okay.” _

_ “I’m just still surprised, that's all!” _

He wanted to know so much. It almost reminded it of himself, following Jimmy’s hot older cousin that knew it all about liking boys and had smiled at Johnny first, told him it was okay.

“No, just confused I guess. I was expecting the worst but it never came.”

Tommy pushed his shoulder with his. “Because it’s not a bad thing, man.”

He chuckled, big brown eyes on his mind.

_ John _ , said breathlessly.  _ John _ , like an accusation.  _ John _ , so casually said it was maddening.

Daniel on his mind.

“God.” Johnny shook his head. “I need to stop seeing Bambi, man.  _ He  _ is driving me crazy.”

His friend frowned, his nose wrinkling in a funny way. “Who’s Bambi? Are you seeing someone and we don’t know? You’re such an ass!”

“No! I’m not—” Johnny laughed. “God, no. Don’t... Throw that malefice my way, man.”

“What?”

“That’s LaRusso.” He sighed. “Bambi is LaRusso.”

Again, Tommy’s eyes opened wide. It seemed like Johnny couldn’t stop surprising his friend tonight. But this time, Tommy just nodded with a knowing smile he didn’t like—it reminded him of the way Jimmy used to roll his eyes and smile at him when he talked of his cousin. The way Bobby smiled his way every time they talked about Ben.

He should be bothered by it.

Offended even, about to go break things.

Instead, all he had in his head as he fell asleep was Robby and Miguel sitting on the fountain as they talked so close, he couldn’t tell from afar where one started and the other ended. Daniel in his hoodie, his fingers as he crushed the bonsai into his chest.

Big brown eyes looking into his, so close, it felt like time won’t fly by.

* * *

Tommy left them overnight.

When Johnny came home, Miguel had told his fellow Cobras class would remain canceled until he was able to think again. His students had sent him texts with their condolences, private and on the chat box Aisha had made for all of them.

He opened the door of his apartment to find him and Robby in the living room with the boy that used to follow Hawk around sitting on his coffee table in front of his son.

As soon as Robby saw him, he stood up with big, sad, puppy dog eyes.

“I’m so sorry…” He said, there was pain in his voice, memories of when he was a child and had Uncles heavily in it. “I’m so sorry, dad.”

Before he could say anything, assure him it was okay, Robby leaned his forehead on his chest and Johnny saw him shiver. Swallowing, he wrapped his arms around his boy and put his cheek on his hair.

He didn’t realize when the other two left the place, didn’t know how long it had been by the time they went apart with marked tears on their cheeks. But Johnny smiled at him, cleaning his face with the palm of his right hand.

“Did you water Laurie?” He asked, hoping his son would forgive him.

Robby nodded with a tiny smile. 

“Good.” He cleared his throat. “Did you eat all Rosa made for you?”

The boy giggled, nodding again. “Obviously. There’s  _ Tomatado  _ in the fridge if you want.”

“Oh, thank god. I’m starving!” Johnny sighed, then smiled at his son. “It’s  _ Entomatado _ , by the way.”

“Oh.” Robby nodded. “ _ Entomatado _ .”

His pup followed his lead, didn’t ask for details but only if the burial had been okay, if he saw his  _ Aunts _ , his  _ cousins _ . 

He should have taken him, maybe—but he sat down with his kid at their little table, eating the food their neighbors had done for them, and in spite of the sadness and the numbness, Johnny felt real.

* * *

Somehow, Daniel ended at his door at night.

Johnny frowned at the sight of him dressed in jeans and a soft-looking sweater that was probably killing him—nobody uses this in Summer, but Daniel LaRusso. He blinked a couple of times, thinking maybe he was dreaming because this, this was so much like him.

Weird dreams of people he should not be dreaming with.

But, “I—” Bambi talked. “Robby told me about Tommy, and I just—” He sighed, looking awkward but genuinely upset about it. “I’m so sorry, John.”

Johnny blinked again, stepping aside to let him in. “Thanks.” He cleared his throat as the man stepped in. “We… we knew it was coming but—it really didn’t make it any easier.”

“I know.” He said. Daniel’s father had died when he was eight. He had been ill. “It’s never easy.” He had lost his sensei, too. The man that had been his father. “How are you holding up?”

He cared, for some reason. Johnny blinked and looked away, crossing his arms over his chest.

“The worst has happened already.” He admitted. “It’ll be fine.”

“And Robby? He was so upset, I told him to take the day, but didn’t go back to class in two days. Is he okay?”

So, the pup hadn’t been to karate. He wondered what his son had been up to, if he had cried alone or Miguel had kept him company. The image of the two boys sitting with Robby earlier today came to mind, the way Miguel had an arm around Robby’s shoulders.

“Yeah, he’s in front.”

Daniel looked at the door as if he could see Robby at the Diaz’s somehow. He nodded.

“Looks like Robby knew Tommy well.” He smiled. “You guys really did… all that stuff of friends forever, uh?”

He shrugged, unable to hide the smile that came every time he thought of them. “We were all we knew back then.” Johnny looked at Daniel. “You look better than last time.”

The man sighed, walking deeper into the apartment and looking around. 

It was surreal, the sight of him in this cramped space, among his old and mixed furniture. But he didn’t look out of place—he looked like the tree had when Johnny first put it in his room, like if he could fade into the image, be part of it one day.

He swallowed, looking at the table where Laurie stood. 

Robby had taken out the wires they’d put a few weeks back, pruned it a little and left it there for Johnny to take back into his bedroom. Daniel turned as if Johnny had told him to, stopping in his tracks at the sight of the tree.

The man was suddenly smiling wide, walking fast towards it and passing his hand gently over its leaves like Robby always did. He chuckled, then looked at Johnny.

“Is this the one I gave you?”

“Yeah…”

He made a strange sound of delight, smiling even brighter if it was possible. 

Daniel laughed looking at it, and seemed like the plant was telling him secrets. Maybe the same secrets it had told Robby that first night, and Johnny couldn’t help but wonder if his balance shit gave him plant powers or something.

Shit. He needed to sleep.

“You—you want something to drink? A beer?”

Daniel looked at him, stared at his face for what felt like forever, then just nodded.

Swallowing, Johnny walked into the kitchen.

“Laurie?”

“Yeah, Miguel and Aisha incisted it needed a name.”

The laugh came back, it sounded sweet—endearing. Johnny truly needed to sleep.

When he opened the fridge, Johnny frowned. Once again—he could swear he had more beer than he was seeing. Had Robby and Miguel been going through his shit? Carmen was  _ really _ gonna kill him this time if they had been drinking while he was gone.

He took two bottles, walking back to the man. He left his bottle on the table and opened Daniel’s, sending the cap flying across the room and into the bin Robby had put near the living room. It was twenty points, according to him.

The boy had always loved that trick. His points system according to the distance of the bin was a game they’ve been doing since his first week in the apartment.

Daniel made a surprised sound and Johnny couldn’t help but smile.

“What?” He asked, passing the bottle to Daniel.

“What was that?” The man asked back, taking the bottle. His eyes were shining in excitement, like a little child.

“Eh, just an old trick.” He answered, sounding like a cocky bastard even to his ears. Like a flirty idiot. “Come here.”

Johnny took the other bottle as the man walked towards him. They stood close, Johnny showing Daniel the easy way he took the cap out and sent it flying across the room, Daniel reacting with excitement to his actions like it was truly the most amazing thing.

They stayed this close as silence filled the place again, as they took a sip of their beers, and looked at each other.

_ I understand. I really do. _

Daniel smiled at him, turned back to the tree and sighed. Johnny took the chance to admire his stand, the way he seemed like he had finally gotten some sleep and was looking fresh out of the shower. 

Had he’d made himself presentable just to come here?

Johnny got closer, standing at Daniel’s side as he looked at him passing his fingers through— 

He took Daniel’s had without thinking, eyes on his fingers.

“John?”

Right away, he looked up and slowly let go of his hand. 

They stood there looking at each other, Daniel’s eyes wide and surprised, Johnny’s heart in his throat as something cold went up his spine while something warm roared in the pit of his stomach.

Daniel, expecting him to say anything but—there wasn’t much to say, really.

He had come here to check on him, offer his condolences for Tommy, ask about his son. This man that somehow had ended up so entangled in his life, that lived in his mind, that made tiny things into bigger treasures.

Daniel looked down at his own hand, leaving the beer on the table as Johnny did the same. His heart hammered in his chest when he saw Daniel flex his fingers as if Johnny’s touch lingered there, as if it had burned somehow, and when—

When had they become this?

He looked up, Johnny simply stood there.

Slowly, Daniel crossed the small distance between them, putting both hands on Johnny’s face with shaky fingers but determined eyes. Johnny’s eyes closed as he leaned down, closing the distance between them with the soft touch of their lips.

Kisses were his favorite first.

It always told him all he needed, if things sparked and if things may become something else. And usually, he’ll run in the other direction if the second option felt likely—but in here, as Johnny followed Daniel’s lead with slow movements, it felt safe.

He put his hands on Daniel’s waist, holding him firm against his body as the man sighed in his mouth.

Johnny drowned his doubts on the kiss, opened his mouth wider as his tongue slightly touched Daniel’s. 

The man moaned, letting him in. His fingers from his right hand went to Johnny’s hair, and he couldn’t help the goosebumps on his neck as Daniel pulled at it gently, as if he had wanted to do it for a while.

Maybe he did. Maybe this was all Johnny ever wanted, maybe all those things Johnny couldn’t name and recognize before were always going to get them here.

When they went apart, he hoped Daniel’s astonished face wasn’t the last he’ll see of him. He hoped it was the same epiphany Johnny was having.

That earthy colors were Daniel’s as was the smell of rain and everything alive, like all he had brought into his life by caring and being kind to him when, in reality, he never had to—that he had brought back the one good thing Johnny ever did: his son that smiled at him when he thought it a lost case a long time ago.

Daniel looked at his lips again, moved for another kiss. Johnny gave in, realizing he wanted to give him anything he wanted, anything he asked for—

He pecked his lips, one and two times, and took Daniel’s right hand in his, tangling their fingers together—because Daniel wasn’t wearing a ring anymore, and many, many things had grown.

* * *

Johnny didn’t see Daniel in almost  _ two  _ weeks after the kiss.

The bitter taste of rejection settled in his mouth for days after he finally accepted what it was, and went to his fridge to drink his shame away just to notice, once again, that there were way less Coors cans than before.

With a frown, Johnny walked outside the apartment, knowing his son was wasting time with Miguel at his place. He opened the door and froze at the sight that greeted him.

“Hi.”

Johnny blinked a couple of times. “Shannon?”

The woman smiled at him, slowly getting her fist down with a sigh. “I got your messages… that Robby is here with you?”

He looked at her as if she was a ghost.

Johnny’s eyes went up and down, searching for any injuries or a sign that something was amiss but Shannon looked—she looked  _ good _ . Tired, nervous, but she looked okay. He looked her in the eyes and moved away, letting her in.

“He’s with the neighbors.” He said as she looked around his place, nervously adjusting her shirt. “You want me to…?”

“No, I would—” Shannon turned to see him as he closed the door behind him. “I wanna talk to you first.”

When he met Shannon, she’d been a happy girl.

She seemed to him as if she was full of sunshine, always searching for a way to have fun and laugh. And it was her laugh that attracted him to her in the first place. 

He had seen her all night in that dive bar, a rarely cold night of march, and she had smiled at him the second their eyes met for the first time.

All she did now was try to smile, try to look aloof as she asked how their son was, what they’ve been up to, if he had asked about her.

None of them talked much at first, unlike the night they met, when she’d been responsive and excited to hear him. Shannon was one of those women that liked older guys, she’d been happy to get the desired attention from him, and so she laughed at all his jokes and followed all his games.

To him, in that moment, she seemed more than a hookup. He got her number and, for the first time in long years, he actually called.

Now, Shannon had left her boyfriend recently. Had found her way back and stayed at a friend’s who had given her another chance. It inspired her to go back to the apartment and almost lose her mind when she couldn't remember the multiple texts he sent her about their son.

It had cost her days to gather the courage to come here and stand at the door. And he could imagine it, he knew what it was like—to stand in front of a door, trying to simply knock and then turning around, walking away.

As she spoke, he finally realized what she was doing there.

“You’re leaving.” He said. It wasn’t a question.

Shannon chuckled, she tried to smile but it became something else. Her eyes filled with tears, and Johnny frowned.

“It’s not what you think.”

“No?” He swallowed. “I—look, Robby is doing pretty well, okay? I finally got him to accept go back to school, he doesn’t need—”

“I’m going to rehab, Johnny.” She breathed in, nervously playing with her fingers. “I’m not okay, I need—”

“Hey,” He moved from where he was sitting, crouching in front of her, “hey, it’s fine.”

“No, it’s not! Johnny, I can’t keep doing this to myself! Look what I did to him!” 

He blinked, his stomach knotted and his mouth felt dry.

“I left my baby for a bottle of pills!” She said. Johnny looked down at her hands, the way her nails from her right hand were scraping at her left hand, drawing blood with every movement. “What kind of person does that?”

There was a can of Coors in the counter getting warmer as he crouched in front of the mother of his child.

He remembered laying on the floor of the little house they'd lived in when Robby was only five as they listened to music. The afternoon becoming night in their window, Shannon’s voice close to him as she sang  _ If You Leave Me Now _ .

They weren’t those people anymore. 

Somewhere in time, they had succumbed to their worst habits and become this. These messed up parents that left their kid for a bottle of self-pity.

“Shan,” Johnny sighed, putting a hand on hers to stop her from hurting herself anymore. “Look—”

“Dad, Mrs. Diaz—I mean,  _ Yaya _ —just cut mine and Miguel’s hair, she says if you want a haircut too—”

He looked back as he stood, Shannon stopped breathing for a second and Robby’s eyes opened wide.

“Mom?”

The door was wide open, Miguel was looking in with curious eyes and nobody was saying anything. 

He saw his kid frown, Miguel put a hand on his shoulder. Robby looked back for a second, then walked slowly inside.

“Hi, sweetie.” She tried to smile. “You cut your hair!”

Robby’s hair was short now and he looked like a movie star. Johnny vaguely remembered Miguel calling him ‘dollar store Jeffrey Dahmer’ a few days ago, saying he needed a haircut and his son—he had just got one.

In spite of the situation, he couldn’t help to smile.

Johnny cleared his throat.

“Sure.” He said, walking towards his son. “I’ll take her offert.”

“Dad—” The boy looked up with a frown and puppy eyes. “Don’t—”

“Robby,” He sighed, passing his hand through Robby’s hair. “It’ll be just a second, I don’t need much.”

He needed to talk to his mother.

If he had given Johnny a chance, Shannon deserved one more than him.

Robby sighed deeply, looking at the woman in their living room. He nodded, suddenly looking determined as he walked in. Miguel didn’t seem so sure, but he followed Johnny as they exited the apartment, closing the door slowly.

They stood there for a second, looking at the door.

“So that’s Mrs. Keene?” Miguel asked. Johnny only nodded. “You think it’s gonna be okay?”

_ If you leave me now you'll take away the very heart of me _

“Yeah.”

Later, as Shannon left, he promised to pick her up in the morning and drive her to the clinic she was staying in. Robby hadn’t said if he was coming, but Johnny suspected he’ll be up and ready in the morning.

The boy ran into his room without a word, and minutes later, Miguel came in.

“He’s in his room.”

“Uh, okay…” He cleared his throat. “Can I…?”

“Yeah.”

Johnny saw him come out the room in the morning, looking exhausted but walking behind Robby as they talked of some tv show they had watched for a good part of the night.

The boy stood on the sidewalk as Johnny drove away with Robby in the copilot seat, watching with a small smile and bed hair.

_ We've come too far to leave it all behind _

He sighed, passing a finger gently on Robby’s cheek. The boy smiled at him, and they drove in silence to get to Shannon, and none of them were little boys hiding between the dusty furniture anymore.

* * *

A million times he found himself about to text Daniel, and every time—he stopped. 

Johnny couldn’t think of an excuse to call, to ask what was going on, why had he just kissed him then disappear. All he knew was that, apparently, his divorce was still going and none of his children were happy.

Because Robby came home irritated, complaining about Samantha and the things she said all day, the way his sensei seemed like a ghost in his own dojo and everyone was worried but unable to say something about it.

So, Johnny didn’t text. Daniel didn’t call. And life kept going.

He came out the Diaz’s apartment with the tree one afternoon, and he saw Miguel and Robby sitting on the fountain as close as always.

Johnny walked to his apartment, watching them speak as they shared those little earphones Miguel had with him every day. They were listening to music together and Robby had his hand slightly on the other boy’s knee.

Johnny blinked a couple of times, looking at the number on his door.

Something clicked in his head, and he turned to look at them.

Daniel’s big toothy smile appeared in his mind, the way the boy he’d been would look up at him as he read Wuthering Heights aloud in English class. His cheeks had been warm, Johnny remembered, as he tried to ignore the way it weighed on him that this guy was looking.

_ “With passion, Mr. Lawrence! You’re begging your beloved to haunt you forever after she died!” _

The class had laughed, Daniel had held his chin on one hand, looking up with a smile and something in his eyes Johnny had only seen in him even now.

Miguel said something, making Robby look. The boy smiled at his son with shining eyes.

_ “You said I killed you _ — _ haunt me then… _

_ The murdered do haunt their murderers. “ _

The boys laughed together, Johnny blinked a couple of times more as he frowned. His heart was beating fast, the shot of adrenaline going through his body was making the memory even clearer.

_ “I believe _ — _ I know that ghosts have wandered the earth.” _

If ghosts exist, Daniel was one. Kreese. Shannon. Him, a haunted house.

Daniel had looked half dead the days previous to him taking off the ring. He’d looked at Johnny like an old friend, told him he knew him, told him what was not good for him and his students, making him prepare sandwiches with him in his kitchen.

The curse of Daniel LaRusso had followed him his entire life, a feeling always there and always present, a form he would know anywhere that had started with two boys standing in the wrong beach, the wrong night, the wrong hour.

_ “Be with me always _ — _ take any form _ — _ drive me mad! _

_ Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!”  _

The class had clapped like the little idiots they were back then, and Daniel had bitten his bottom lip, batting his eyelashes prettily as Johnny sat down at last, embarrassed beyond his mind.

_ “So, he romances the ghosts pretty well.” _

_ “Shut up, LaRusso.” _

Miguel giggled like Daniel had back then and—

Oh.

**_Oh_ ** .

* * *

He sat for hours in his car drinking, looking up at the billboard in front of him.

Daniel’s face smiled at him, asking for yet another rocket dick to be drawn on his face and all that blue space in the billboard, but this time Johnny didn’t do such a thing.

He sat there thinking of the past and how the man had left him hanging after the best kiss of his life, after haunting his dreams for thirty years, after giving him green and life, and his son back.

Johnny’s mind felt dusty.

This was the longest Summer of his life, and Johnny was done with it.

* * *

The kids were odd.

It had started with a few of them leaving the chat box thing Aisha had made. Nobody seemed to know why it was happening, and the kids had been anxious when he asked aloud during class.

The next thing he noticed was Zack, still not hanging out with the boys. Then, Tory becoming more angry in her attacks, pushing Miguel once and twice, and the other boys taunting Eli more often. 

Normally, he wouldn’t mind it much—these teens sometimes were hard between them, pushed each other to get a better fight. But it was just all of this, all of this Summer and the shadow of his sensei still here that made him look into it.

“Miss Robinson,” Johnny called Aisha, she looked at him and blinked when he signaled the office. 

The girl followed him in, leaving Hawk and Miguel to their conversation in the corner when everyone else had left.

He had seen Eli lose his minions after what happened in Miyagi-do, but he had gone back to be in Miguel’s and Aisha’s constant company, now always with Tory when the girl wasn’t lashing out at her own friends during training. 

The girl wasn’t anywhere to be seen today, it made that bad feeling sink deeper into him. She would hang around, wait for Aisha. Hell, they sometimes went to their building to meet with Robby as they followed Miguel like a leader, then hung out somewhere else.

“It’s something wrong, sensei?” Aisha’s voice snapped him back to reality.

Johnny sighed and sat down on his chair.

“I was gonna ask you that.” She frowned for a moment. “Miguel told me about what happened with Zack, for what I’ve seen—he’s still distant with them. You have any idea why?”

She arched an eyebrow, probably thinking of the many ways she could tease him for this—but she was a smart girl, and kept her mouth shut when necessary like she did today.

“Well…” She started, clearing her throat as she sat in front of him. “Zack is seeing someone now.”

“Oh.” He couldn’t help but smile. “So he dumped the morons for a dick? Nice.”

Aisha chuckled, shaking her head as she licked her lips.

“You know, sensei—I must say, I’m proud of you for taking this so well.”

“Taking what so well?”

“Zack.” She smiled. “I know sometimes it’s… awkward for you.”

“Well,” he sighed. “Actually no, it’s not. It has never been a problem.”

Thank god, she didn’t ask about it. Aisha smiled and nodded.

“I think you already know Hawk and Moon broke up.” She said, Johnny nodded. “And so did Tory and Miguel.”

“What?” He frowned. “They were a thing?”

Aisha laughed, nodding. “Just for a few weeks, it didn’t work out.” She shrugged. “It was mutual. She’s actually fine—I thought she’d be sadder, but she says she knew Miguel had his head somewhere else all the time.”

Wonder why. 

Johnny was still thinking of the  _ illumination  _ he had that night in their building, seeing the two boys share music and laughs. Not only about him and—about them both. He wondered if they were aware of it, or if he was just projecting as he often did according to Shannon and Carmen.

“You think he’s got someone?”

“Nah, I think he finally moved on from Sam and the dating scene for the moment.” She sighed. “Looks like hormones are finally settling.”

She was right, at least it meant less drama for each of them. It meant he wouldn’t have to get advice out of his ass for all and every of Miguel’s dramas—and that whatever was between them was safe for now.

Whatever it was, Johnny hoped they could have it.

“What about you, sensei? You got something going on?” Aisha asked with a funny little movement of her eyebrows.

Johnny hardened his eyes, narrowed them at her. She didn’t seem bothered at all.

“That’s none of your business, Miss Robinson.”

The girl giggled, Johnny couldn’t help the smile on his face. She was a good girl, a great student, a brain and a badass.

“I’m just glad I don’t have to listen to anyone complain about their Summer romance anymore. I had enough of that with Samantha.” She rolled her eyes.

Johnny smiled sympathetic to her. “You’ll get back at her and the others when you get a boy, don’t worry.”

“Uh? Me? Complaining?” She shook her head, looking baffled. Johnny waited for the rest of it. “For your information, sensei— _ my _ boyfriend is great.”

“Oh, so there’s a boy!”

Aisha rolled her eyes. “His name is Mark. We met in the Country Club, but he’s actually pretty smart.”

“Who cares if he’s a brain? Is he rich, is he hot, does he know his shit?” He asked, making her laugh right away

She nodded with pink cheeks. Johnny smirked.

“Well, Mark better be a deserving man, Miss Robinson.” He said, sighing. “And if he tries anything funny, you know what to do.”

“Fist to the throat, kick to the balls.”

“Good girl.”

Aisha laughed again, looking back when her phone rang. She sighed before standing to say goodbye, her father had come to pick her up.

With her gone, only Miguel and Hawk remained on sight. 

They had changed to their normal clothes again and were walking towards his office when they heard the dojo’s door open. Johnny stood, walking out the office to find his son coming.

It was such a sight, his boy in his dojo, talking aloud to the boys—he remembered they had plans, were going to the movies or something.

Johnny was about to ask, when a voice froze him on his feet.

“It’s your sensei around?”

“Yeah, he’s in his office.” He heard Miguel say, but Johnny’s eyes were on the man avoiding the mat as he walked to his office. “Sensei?”

He looked at the boy, he smiled slightly. “We’ll be going.”

“Sure.” Johnny answered, eyes meeting with Robby’s as he got to him and gave him a half-hug. “You got your key?”

“Yeah.” He answered, looking up at him. “Don’t kill my sensei, please.”

“Nah, no blood in the dojo.”

The boy shook his head with a smile, passing Daniel as they said goodbye. Hawk saluted him, Johnny smiled at the boys and sighed, slowly looking at this bastard he hadn’t seen in weeks after kissing him as if his life depended on it.

Daniel smiled at him but it didn’t reach his eyes. He had gone back to look like a walking corpse, bags under his eyes and a sickly expression on his face.

He bit the inside of his cheek, watching as Daniel looked around his office once they were inside and no one was saying anything.

There was no explanations or attempt at ignoring the elephant in the room, just this tension again, and again, and Johnny was already feeling tired.

“I—“ Daniel turned around. “I just came from a meeting with the All-Valley committee.” He started, Johnny frowned.

Robby had told him about it through text, he had asked him to tell the boys to wait for him since Daniel was driving him but had been asked to meet the committee for an emergency. 

Whatever it was, the man had decided to keep it away from Robby, but seemed important enough to amerit coming looking for him after ignoring Johnny for days.

“Okay.”

The man took a deep breath. “Do you— John, please tell me you have a contract for the rent of this place.”

“What?”

Daniel gave a step towards him, talking slowly. “A contract. That establishes you rent this place, the permits to have it, documents that confirm  _ you  _ own Cobra Kai.”

Johnny blinked a couple of times, a cold feeling spreading on his shoulders and down his back.

“Yes.”

“Really?”

He swallowed. “I—I think…” He tried to think of it. “Yes.”

No, he wasn’t sure. The permit was somewhere between all the papers in the archive, everything else, he—

_ I was putting some order in the office. _

No.

Johnny blinked, walking fast towards the archive. He knew Daniel was talking, he heard a word or two—but there was nothing in his head but Kreese cleaning up his desk, saying to have put order in the archives and the papers of the dojo.

Order, order, order—

He felt underwater, his movements slowed down as a buzz in his ears and Daniel’s voice in the back but Johnny couldn’t understand a single word.

All he could see was the useless bunch of papers neatly kept in the drawers, Kreese changing the office to look like the old Cobra Kai of his childhood, his parting words and the bad feeling that had been nesting in his chest for weeks.

His children’s laugh filled his ear as he felt hands on his shoulders, the world shaking—this wasn’t like any hangover, any drunken crisis he’s ever had. His heart hurt, it pulsed strongly and with each beat, hurt even more until he snapped out of it.

Daniel’s face was close to his, his eyes opened wide. There was fear in them, a different kind of fear Johnny had only seen once—in that parking lot where so much had happened so long ago, as he asked if Kreese was alive.

He was, the shadow was alive.

“John.” Daniel said his name slowly, Johnny blinked trying to understand. “Did you hear anything I said?”

He could only shake his head. His throat was closed, dusty, and there were no words in the world anymore.

“I—You need a lawyer. A good one.” He sighed. Johnny tried to move and only then he realized he was sitting on the ground with Daniel kneeling at his side, his hands on Johnny’s shoulders. “We got a memo that the dojo had changed administration.”

White started to fill his sight, Johnny continued without saying anything so Daniel kept talking.

“You can guess who…” He licked his lips. “Johnny, what’s going on?”

Did he  _ look  _ like he knew? 

Johnny blinked a couple of times, thinking of all that had happened lately. This eternal Summer that didn’t let him rest for a single day—this man that tormented his every waking minute and restless sleep. The ghosts he should have never let in again.

There was a hand massaging his back in circles, another hand gently on his chest. 

Ever since the fountain, he’d tried to—he had almost texted Daniel a million times, had almost called another thousand times, but he never did.

The man had disappeared from his life after shaking it again, just like he had thirty years ago, just like he was doing now as they looked at each other with wide open eyes.

And all he could feel was rage.

“Get off me.” He moved fast to stand up. “Fuck—Fuck!”

“Johnny—”

“Shut up, shut up for once!” He passed his fingers through his hair, yanking at it as he tried to think, to understand— “FUCK!”

There was a hand on his back, Johnny looked at his right where Daniel was standing with a frown and fucking understanding eyes. 

“Look, Johnny. I know you’re upset about this, but you gotta act fast before something else happens—there must be something you can do!” He said, Johnny frowned and clenched his jaw. “Zakarian rents you this place, right? We—we could talk to him or—”

“Oh you care now, don’t you?” He said, his voice sounded harsher than he intended.

“Johnny, it’s not the time—”

“No?” He moved, standing in all his height, towering over Daniel. “Then when? You disappeared for weeks, you go around breaking shit and playing others then go hide under a rock until you find a way to shit on them again!”

“You think I’m shitting on you right now? I’m trying to help!”

“Well, I don’t need you.” He swallowed. “Just… go away.”

“Johnny—”

“Go away, Daniel.”

His eyes opened wide, mouth slightly open. Daniel looked shocked, holding his breath as if Johnny had hit him. He stood there watching him and slowly looked down, his posture and face the image of rejection and just for a second—he felt about it.

If he left right away or still took his time, Johnny wasn’t sure.

All he could do was move boxes and drawers around, searching for those fucking papers he already knew had been stolen and changed, knowing well that the only thing he could do was to face the man himself.

How could had been so stupid?

Why did he thought he just—even in fucking movies, on TV, the logical thing was always to fill every sheet himself, use his name, his sign, save it where he knew nothing and nobody could touch it.

Somehow, he ended up sitting on the ground, back against the mini-fridge’s side, third bottle of beer in hand, the taste of salt on his lips.

There were cobwebs in the ceiling, if Robby was here he may still remember what kind of spider had done them. Johnny took another long sip of his beer, the sound of a call on his desk, and the image of himself at twelve hiding under a desk to listen to music.

* * *

Robby had been a curious kid growing up.

His knees were always scratched, band-aids were always on his arms and forehead, but he kept running and laughing no matter what.

Johnny remembered he could spend hours playing Hide and Seek with his pup. He was an expert at hiding since a young age, but his son always managed to amaze him anyway.

They would hunt for bugs, name them after Power Rangers, and then let them go once Robby had drawn them in his Grail Diary that had been a simple black small notebook Shannon had gotten him after they watched the Indiana Jones movies.

It seemed to him back then that nothing would ever be as amazing as his little puppy, making games out of nowhere, finding places where he won’t be found and win every game.

Johnny looked at him now, astonished, as Robby’s eyes opened in clear fear and preoccupation, the can of beer he had been emptying on the kitchen’s sink falling into it from his hand.

“Dad!” He said, walking out the kitchen area and to the door where Johnny stood. “Oh my god, we were worried something had happened to you! Where were you? It’s been two days!”

Two days?

He couldn’t remember much of anything, just beer after beer, shot after shot, puking.

Kreese with his arms crossed as he did. The smell of tobacco in the air, the eyes of the other people in the shelter as he shouted— _ You can’t do this! You won’t get away with it! _ —and the street.

He’d been asked to leave but he didn’t. He’d been taken out, asked to not come back. 

So he yelled.

Johnny had yelled so much his voice became hoarse and devoid of tone, meaning, strength—

Robby was talking. He was saying many things as he held his phone, making calls—a frown on his face, the tip of his nose red and—

“I thought you were drinking it.” Johnny said after what felt like a lifetime.

His voice came out dry, and his son flinched at the sound of it.

Robby just shook his head. Johnny blinked a couple of times.

The boy left his phone aside, slowly breathing in and out. He watched him as if for the first time, only now realizing the trash he was, the unworthy loser he had always been and had now lost everything to his own inadequacy for the world, his own stupidity.

Kreese had scoffed. By now, he had probably had his first official class and now—

“Those cost money, you know?”

The boy frowned, closing his mouth as he stood in all his height, chest out and chin up. He swallowed visibly before speaking again. 

“I’ll pay you every can in the fridge if you stop drinking.”

His chest hurt.

_ What are you afraid of, daddy? _

_ Falling. _

_ Well, I’ll catch you! _

He heard the door close as he slid to the floor in tears.

There were steps behind him, hands on his back and shoulder, the smell of mint and earth that was his son, the little boy that liked bugs and wasn’t scared of anything. 

Johnny cried silently like he learned from a young age. He cried with his mouth closed and his eyes opened, feeling the weight of the world on him, everything crumbling down as it hammered in his head:

That he had failed. He had failed those kids as he was failing his son, and Shannon, and his mother, and himself—and Daniel, too.

He had told the man he would never let anything happen to his students, that he’ll handle Kreese, and would never let them down.

Johnny had looked him in the eyes as Daniel was full of fear in front of him, and had assured him his kids would never fall into the pit he and his friends had in the hands of John Kreese. But he did, he let it happen, he was letting it happen right now as Robby desperately called for him to react.

“Come on, come on…” Robby insisted, putting Johnny’s arm over his shoulders. “You gotta lay down, dad. Come on.”

Somehow, they made it to his room. 

Robby lay him down gently, taking care of him the way no kid should be taking care of their drunk fucked up dad. But he did, he closed the window and the blinds, put a trash bin near his bed, talked about food in the fridge, calls he needed to do—

Because they had been looking for him, and Uncle Bobby hadn’t let him leave the apartment in the hopes he’d come back. Robby took off his shoes, said something about showers and talks they needed to have.

His fingers went through his hair the same way Johnny passed his on his son’s hair, the same way his mother used to pass hers on his. 

“I got you, dad.”

The last thing he saw of him was the boy taking Laurie and walking out the dark room.

All Johnny had in mind as he looked to nowhere in particular, laying on his bed after two days of drinking, was the image of a small Robby releasing the butterfly that had hatched in one of his colorful jars. 

He had been smiling as Shannon opened it, the animal quickly flying away into the open as they watched it from their window in the small house they lived in.

Shannon had looked at Johnny, while Robby said goodbye to the butterfly, waving his little hand. There was so much love and gratefulness in her eyes, his chest had hurt as it hurt now.

This amazing boy they were blessed with… he didn’t deserve him.

And yet—

The dust liften, his eyes started to close, tears still running down his face.

It was time to clean up.

* * *

They didn’t talk as Johnny recovered on Sunday.

Bobby had yelled at him on the phone, then in person. His wife had come, too. Jennifer Martin-Brown was the best person he knew, and she wasn’t having none of his shit—they scolded him like a child, and Johnny felt tiny.

He felt tiny as Carmen refused to see him and Rosa came in with chicken soup and a frown. 

He felt dusty as Miguel told him with a solemn voice there was a new box chat, one that didn’t have Johnny and that he had left. Others too, but he didn’t hear anything else.

He felt old as Robby stayed home without a word, constantly checking on him as if he was sick and not just hungover out of his mind.

Robby’s phone rang all day, and all day he ignored it. Johnny could hear it even in the freezer, but the boy refused to attend anything else that wasn’t his father.

It made the drive to school on Monday tense and awkward as they hadn’t been in long weeks, and Johnny felt like shit once he stopped in front of the entrance.

“Thanks for driving me, dad.” The boy said.

Johnny cleared his throat, making Robby look at him with a small frown.

“Robby, I…” He sighed. “I’m sorry you saw that. This weekend, this entire month has been—I don’t know.”

“I don’t want excuses.” Robby said. He didn’t look like a boy anymore with his hair short, his serious expression, eyes hard. “I understand. I really do. But you disappeared for two days without a word… what did you expect me to believe now?”

“I’m so sorry.” He said out of breath. “Kid, I—I lost everything I built for myself! I failed. Again! How do you want me to feel?”

Robby’s eyes filled with tears, but he kept his chin high.

“But I’m here, you big moron.” He said. “Miguel and I are here.”

He squeezed the steering wheel with both hands until they went white, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he tried to take away the overwhelming feeling of just how damn lucky he was his son was this good, this kind, this loving.

From where had he taken this?

Laura’s smile came to mind. She’d been the most loving person Johnny had ever met. He had once told Shannon, as they had been doing well and Robby was sleeping between them, that he liked to think Robby was sent by his mother.

That she had met that sweet soul and sent him to them, one angel for another, so the world could keep its rhythm, its color and life.

His mother had been the most loving person he had ever met, until now.

“It won’t happen again.”

“Yeah.” Robby sighed. “It won’t. Because if you do it again, I’m leaving.”

Johnny looked at him, Robby was drying a tear from his left cheek. 

“I’d rather be alone than see you and mom slowly kill yourselves.” 

There was nothing else to say, Robby was being more serious than ever.

It was not one of his little tantrums, his attempts at hurting him to get back at him, another trick. He was serious, tired, so damn tired at only sixteen.

_ “Why don’t you leave him?! I would rather be poor and work two jobs a day and leave school than seeing him treat you like this!” _

_ “Mom, please… why?” _

“Okay.”

Robby blinked a couple of times, scaring the tears away.

“Tell me a secret.”

Johnny swallowed. “You gotta tell me one first.”

He saw him squeeze his new bag. They had gotten it with Miguel and Carmen a week ago, had bought all things the boys needed, laughed about sewing patches of their dojos as they carried matching bags—red and black for Robby, black and red for Miguel.

The boy was looking down at his own hands before he slowly looked up.

“I like guys.” 

Johnny blinked a couple of times. 

The image of Miguel looking at his son with shining eyes as they sat on the fountain suddenly fresh in his mind again, Robby with a hand slightly on Miguel’s thigh. All his questions and that spark of recognition in his eyes the night Johnny told him about himself.

Miguel knocking on his door, asking if he could see Robby in his room, spending the night there watching TV with his son. Smiling on the sidewalk as he waved at them when they drove away.

Of course.

“Your turn.”

Johnny swallowed, looking in front, then down. He took a deep breath, looking back at his son.

“I’m afraid.” He said. Robby moved his head to one side, frowning. “Because—this time, I genuinely don’t know what to do.”

Robby nodded, looking back at the school when both heard the ring indicating he was late.

“Well,” the boy licked his lips, “you can start by apologizing to Mr. LaRusso.”

“What?”

“Who do you think told us what happened?” He frowned. “I know you guys are dumb, but he—” He sighed. “Even though he’s going through a really bad time, he still wanted to help you.”

_ What is it to you? _

Johnny blinked a couple of times, the image of Daniel standing in his office, looking around with a worried expression, burned deep in his head.

“He was right about sensei Kreese.” Robby murmured. “Show him he was wrong about  _ you _ .”

He looked down, slowly nodding.

“Yeah, okay.” Johnny swallowed, looking at Robby. “And then what?”

The boy shrugged.

“We’ll figure something out.” He sighed. “I gotta go, I’m going late to my first day in school.”

“Okay.” He tried to smile, he was sure it came out sad. Still, Robby smiled back and moved to hug him lightly. 

Johnny closed his eyes, holding him there for a few seconds more than necessary until the kid had to go. 

“Have a good day, puppy.” He said once the boy was out the Challenger.

Robby looked at him through the open window and smiled, recognition in his eyes. The nickname had come as natural as it was once.

He stayed there watching him jog to the doors, disappearing from his sight through them, and he stayed there for a few more seconds until the sun in his eyes made him move.

Maybe Robby was asking for too much.

Every time one of them let the other in, something came up and ruined it. 

He had shut down Daniel when the man finally reached out to him. 

Daniel had been in the middle of his own adversity when he put it all aside to see him, gently tell him what Kreese had done, offer his help and input even if unwanted at the time.

If Johnny had been a better man, he would had listened and know it was stupid to throw away Daniel’s help the way he had done. The man may never look past this again, he may have balanced it all towards hate and resentment again when it had been on something else.

So, instead of searching for him—Johnny went home.

He gathered all remaining alcohol in the apartment and threw it away in the kitchen’s sink as Robby had been doing— _ since the beginning _ .

Johnny shook his head.

His pup was a blessing.

* * *

It was mid-morning when he got the call, three days into the school year.

Johnny drove like a mad man until he reached the hospital.

He saw Daniel’s wife in the lobby with tears in her eyes and he couldn’t stop himself from running up the stairs, too desperate to wait for the elevator.

The first person he saw in the waiting area was Carmen. She sighed in relief upon seeing him, immediately calming him down by saying Miguel and Robby were actually fine, just being checked over to make sure.

“What happened?” He was almost afraid to ask, but he needed to.

“They have said nothing.” She answered. “All I was told from the school was that a fight broke between two girls and suddenly, everyone was fighting.”

She frowned at him, crossing her arms over her chest. “Does this have something to do with that man Kreese?”

“I don’t know…” He sounded lame, like a liar. “Yes. Probably.”

Or maybe it was just them. Him and Daniel, all over again but worse.

Carmen shook her head, turning around as she walked away from him and Johnny felt like begging her not to—he hated this.

Himself. The faces of every parent here with worry and tears. Amanda crying downstairs. 

“Is Mr. Keene here, Robert’s father?”

Johnny shook his head but stepped in, followed by Carmen. “That would be me.”

“Mr. Keene—“

“Lawrence.” He corrected.

The woman didn’t seem bothered, she nodded and checked something on the papers she was carrying. She smiled at him once she looked up.

“Mr. Lawrence.” She said with a kind expression. “Nothing to worry about, your son is okay.” She said. “However, he did get hit in the head two times according to his friends. We've already checked for major injuries or problems, but I still recommend to keep an eye on him for at least a few days, three or four.”

“Okay…” He swallowed. “Can I— uhm.” He looked at Carmen who looked back, both returned their eyes to the doctor in front of them. “Miguel Diaz, do you know anything about him?”

“The boyfriend!” She smiled, Johnny felt something strange in his stomach. 

Carmen was unfazed.  _ She knew _ . 

Were they really a thing? Was he the last to know?

Johnny swallowed and looked as the doctor checked her notes, nodding to herself.

“Aside from having your son worried, he has a sprained shoulder but will live.”

“¡Ay, Dios mío!”

Johnny looked at Carmen. He’d be as mortified as her, doesn’t matter if the doctor had said he’ll be fine— hell, he wasn’t feeling real. Not here, not anywhere.

“¿Es su hijo?” The doctor asked Carmen, Johnny frowned without knowing what to say.

“Sí. ¿Lo puedo ver? ¿Cuándo nos podemos ir?”

“Mire…”

He left them to it, walking slowly towards the room the woman had come out of. 

Almost shyly, Johnny poked his head in.

The two boys were sitting on a bed, Dimitri standing near them, excitedly talking about something—a fight. A kick he had done.

Johnny’s shoulders fell at the sight of Miguel’s arm in a cast and bruised faces with worried expressions.

They have done this. 

Cobra Kai.

Him.

Kreese. 

Daniel.

They’ve really lurked into these kids’ heads and planted seeds of things that were never theirs. Rivalries that should’ve died in the mat of All-Valley thirty years ago.

It was all he could think about as they were let go from the hospital, as he drove them all home where Rosa already had her magical chicken soup with curative qualities he was sure was just a loving grandmother worried for her grandchild.

But they fed them, too. 

They didn’t ask about Cobra Kai, or why had everything happened.

None of the boys wanted to talk, all they knew was that Tory had fought Daniel’s daughter after days of teasing each other in class and the hallways. 

Apparently, they had history none of them were aware of—they had started wrong, the resentment had been fed on by his and Daniel’s irresponsibility, and now there were three broken ribs, 38 stitches and a twisted ankle between the two of them.

Bruised faces and fits, bloody clothes and weeks of suspencion.

Hawk had fought, all the Miyagi-do kids had fought the teens he had trained once in Cobra Kai and who had chosen another sensei over him. And somewhere, between all of it, Miguel and Robby had been involved.

Who won and who lost didn’t matter. Consequences were coming, and Johnny was sure not ready for them.

“You gotta do something, sensei.” Miguel said as he walked with them back to his apartment. “Kreese can’t get away with this!”

“Kreese believes this is a war, he’s training soldiers in Cobra Kai now.” Johnny said like a reminder to himself, of what it was like, what he couldn’t see until he grew older. “What can I do?”

“It’s your dojo!” The boys said, sounding more frustrated with every word. “You said—you said you wouldn’t fail us!”

“Miguel.”

Johnny turned after opening his door, looking at his pupil. 

But Robby was there first, a hand gently on Miguel’s chest. The sight sent throbbing pain across his chest, as if it was—they had—it reminded him of things he couldn’t have.

He took a deep breath with closed eyes, olive skin and brown doe eyes on his mind.

“We’ll talk later.” He heard Robby say, Johnny opened his eyes. “You’ve to rest, remember? The painkillers work better if you sleep.”

“Yeah... yes.” Miguel sighed.

The boys looked at each other for a long time, like they were unsure of what to do next.

_ The boyfriend! _

Johnny looked away, getting to his apartment to give them privacy or a chance to say something to him. Why was he being left out of this? Robby knew—he knew—

_ If you liked a guy right now, do you think it would still be a secret? _

_ You know it’s not a bad thing, right? _

_ I like guys. _

His mother used to say secrets could become poison for the heart. She used to say the truth always comes out, that it was better to be honest and true to oneself.

Laurie was still on his table, and Johnny’s eyes opened wide at the sight of it.

It had been days. Had anyone watered it? Checked for bugs? Pruned it?

Johnny was about to touch the soil with a finger when he heard Robby’s surprised voice, his door opening with a bang and Daniel LaRusso standing there, furious out of his mind.

It had all happened so fast.

He wasn’t about to fight Daniel.

Not after what had happened in school between their dojos, their kids. Not when Tory had hurt his daughter, and his daughter had hurt Tory. Not when his son was here, looking at him after giving him yet another chance he didn’t deserve.

But the man was on him without a second thought, claiming it was all his fault for letting Kreese on the loose and giving him a dojo full of bullies ready to hurt and break. Blaming him for everything that had gone wrong in his life: his kids hating him, his injured daughter, his broken marriage about to become a divorce.

He didn’t care if the boys were right there, that they were trashing his entire living area as he avoided the man and Daniel lost every opening and chance, blinded by rage and something else Johnny couldn’t quite touch.

It was the most pathetic fight he had ever been in, it was a fight he didn’t want to be in.

Soon enough and before there could be more damage, the two boys stood between them with their fists up, and Johnny’s heart ached at the sight of both keeping Daniel away from him,  _ protecting  _ him.

_ I got you, dad. _

“You should go home, Mr. LaRusso.” Robby said, Miguel slowly put his fist down. “Hitting my dad is not gonna change anything that happened.”

“He needs to be held responsible for what that girl almost did, he—“

“What Tory did has nothing to do with sensei!” Miguel said with a deep frown. “She sought the fight all by herself and so did the others!”

“We tried to stop it.” Robby said, fists still up. “But you already know that, Mr. LaRusso. You know my dad had nothing to do with this, you just want to hit something.”

Daniel’s jaw clenched. This was the worst Johnny had ever seen him—blaming all to just one thing, one person, seeking for physical relief in the form of a fight he couldn’t even perform well enough as rague and stress blinded him.

Here, as Johnny watched him lower his arms and broke his stance, he could see it perfectly: the sullen face, the huge bags under his eyes, even the grey hairs on his sides he had forgotten to cut or dye away as he was sure he did.

“Leave.” Robby incisted, Johnny finally moved, adrenaline still rushing through his body.

The kids shouldn’t be putting themselves between them. His son shouldn’t be protecting him. They were the ones that were supposed to do that for their students, his child. 

He put a hand on Miguel’s good shoulder, then Robby’s. Both boys looked at him with the exact same expression, and he could tell they were scared of whatever was happening now. Their senseis were a fucking mess.

“That’s alright.” He murmured, it visibly relaxed Robby. “I’ll talk to him, time for you two to go to bed and get some rest as you were told.”

“Dad…”

“To bed.” He cleared his throat. “Now.”

Both hesitated, looking at each other for a few seconds, before they finally obeyed. Miguel gave Daniel a nasty look, walking away from him and through the door he left open. Robby didn’t say anything, only walked away towards his room as Johnny faced Daniel again—

The man threw a kick at him again, Johnny blocked it easily. The sound made Robby come back, yelling at them to stop when Daniel saw his opening and went for it, losing balance as his feet tangled with a chair.

A bad step and an attempt at kicking threw him on his knees. He tried to avoid the hit by holding the table with a hand, his weight flipped it completely and the sound of broken ceramic left the apartment in complete silence.

“What’s going on?” Miguel came in again, eyes opening wide at the sight. “Laurie!”

It all had happened so fast.

Daniel turned to the bonsai on the floor slowly, eyes opening even wider as he realized what he had done, as if breaking the pot of some plant was truly the biggest crime.

But it wasn’t just any plant.

It was the bonsai he had given Johnny when they met again after thirty years of silence, of wondering where the other was, wondering if they remembered Wuthering Heights and souls that are the same.

The bonsai had brought green and light, the smell of wet earth and the memories of his child back into his life. It had gotten him closer to the Diaz family, to Robby when he came, to Daniel when he got in and saw Johnny had kept it.

He kept it, as he kept every memory of Daniel: close to him, in the darkness within himself, in a corner where he could see it all every night as he went to sleep, every morning as he woke up.

“Shit—” Daniel said with a strange noise. It sounded like a sob. “Oh no, no, no, no—”

Daniel started to gather the soil with his hands, he was going to cut them if he kept doing it as frantic as he was. Tiny sobs and sighs came out of him as he murmured things that made Robby frown and look up at Johnny.

Like that night in the parking lot, Daniel was carrying something.

He had secrets of his own not even the wind could hear of, and it was all weighing on him as he tried to—he didn’t know. Johnny had no idea.

But he still walked to him, kneeled down and took his hands away from the mess. The man looked at him, thick tears going down his eyes. He looked at him like he was begging for something and, for the first time, Johnny got it.

He held Daniel’s fingers in his hand, slowly sitting on the floor as the man tried his best to calm himself down.

Johnny heard Robby walk, murmuring something to Miguel and soon, both boys were out of the apartment, closing the door behind them, leaving him and Daniel in silence with fingers joined as the man breathed in and out.

They stayed like that for as long as Daniel needed.

He wanted to say many things—apologies and questions, plans, things he had no way to put into words, but for now Daniel needed something else. He could cry and fall here. Was that enough after all they’ve done to each other? Johnny wasn’t sure, but for now it had to be.

Daniel looked up. He had stopped crying but his eyes were puffy, cheeks and nose red. He looked like the boy Johnny met long ago, always looking at him, this time without anything to say.

“I’m sorry.” It was all that mattered. 

Daniel blinked a couple of times, but nodded. “I’m so sorry, too.”

It was a start.

* * *

Once, when he was in his twenties, Johnny had a dream of Daniel.

In his dream, he saw him on the beach where they met. 

The night had become morning, and the boy had been looking to the waves as he let the water touch his bare feet. He walked the shore, looking down and never at Johnny. But he knew they were walking together, he knew they were together there.

For the long of it, Johnny didn’t speak, didn’t show, did nothing but walk at his side.

Daniel had looked at him as the sun raised, his big eyes shining with the daylight, looking at him like no one had ever looked at Johnny before. He had that toothy grin, those pink cheeks, that pretty nose and soft looking lips.

He had it for weeks that became months, and for a long time he thought it just one of the many ways the universe liked to fuck him over. He never even tried to think much of it, just let it happen.

Weeks after the bonsai, he dreamt of him again.

Back then, he had been young, the boy he knew. 

Now, it was the man.

The man walking on the shore bare feet, looking at the waves and laughing softly when the water touched his feet. Walking with him in silence, the sound of the ocean all around them as the sun came up.

He had looked at him at the end, big eyes shining in the daylight, all sharp edges and soft wrinkles, grey hair on the sides, that pretty nose and those lips he knew were soft and tasted of coffee with too much milk and sugar.

“John”, he had said and Johnny had woken up.

He wasn’t sleeping tonight as he thought of the dream, of this past year and Summer, his son sleeping in his bedroom, Miguel safe and sound in his apartment, his dojo under someone else’s hand.

The man texting him he had made it home safe. 

(1:23 AM)  _ Home now. _

_ I’m way too tired. _

(1:24 AM)  _ you cried like bb, of course you’re tired _

(1:24 AM)  _ I fucking hate you. _

(1:25 AM)  _ hate u too _

_ night, daniel _

(1:26 AM)  _ Good night, John. _

_ I don’t hate you. _

Johnny sighed, shaking his head as he closed his eyes, letting his head fall back. 

He wished he had the noise of the TV, that he hadn’t fucked it up fighting with Daniel earlier that night, that he didn’t need to change a lot of the furniture because he couldn’t keep it together, not even now that they were adults.

But Daniel didn’t hate him. 

Daniel didn’t hate him.

(1:29 AM)  _ Sorry. _

He swallowed, shaking his head. Johnny cleared his throat as if he was truly going to talk.

(1:30 AM)  _ don’t hate u either _

_ you’re just annoying s all _

_ go to sleep, Bambi _

(1:31 AM)  _ I take it back, asshole. _

Johnny laughed, he could  _ read  _ Daniel rolling his eyes in their texts. He took a deep breath and smiled.

(1:31 AM)  _ you’ll have to find me a name  _

_ Bambi is not going anywhere _

(1:37 AM)  _ Good night, Goldilocks. _

He laughed loudly then stopped, looking at the hallway as if he could make sure he hadn’t woken up his son. Johnny sighed, shaking his head.

(1:37 AM)  _ that’s all you could come up with in six minutes??? _

(1:38 AM)  _ You’re such a dick. _

_ Let me sleep! _

(1:38 AM)  _ ;-) _

Tonight he wondered if the dream had always meant something. If it had been a premonition of some sort—but all there was at the end of the day, was all the things that had changed in a year, the things that grew.

Whatever was there between him and Daniel that had only grown with time, a future that scared him but didn’t numb him anymore.

A bonsai drying its roots over newspaper, ready to re-pot in the morning.

Johnny dreamt of Daniel again that night.

* * *

Robby guided him as he re-potted Laurie.

The boys woke him up early the next day to buy all they needed, both suspended after the school brawl they refused to explain in detail still. 

Johnny had wondered how both had seen themselves involved in the girls’ fight, but Robby and Miguel kept it a secret as they were keeping other things away from him.

But they stood with him at the kitchen’s counter, preparing the bonsai for its new home as they talked aloud of the things they knew were happening in Cobra Kai.

Johnny breathed in. 

“What are we gonna do?” Miguel asked.

Johnny breathed out.

Last night, as he cleaned up and left Daniel to his thoughts and regrets, he had wondered the same. He had even thought of asking Daniel,  _ what am I gonna do? What  _ can  _ I do? _ But the man had looked—it wasn’t the moment.

He blinked now, taking the tree gently and putting it into the pot. Robby immediately moved to fill the pot with soil.

“I’m not sure.” He confessed. “Get a lawyer, I guess.”

“So there is something legal to do?” Miguel insisted, he sounded nervous yet hopeful. It broke his heart a little bit. “He can’t get away with it.”

“You’ve no idea how much I’ve heard that since it all happened…” Johnny sighed. “That’s enough.”

Robby stopped his ministrations, blinking as Johnny started to flatten the dirt, make sure every space was filled as it should. 

“I also don’t know.” He sighed. “Boys…” Johnny swallowed, putting his hands away and looking at the tree. 

It had been damaged a bit with the fall, with the frantic way Daniel had tried to rescue it from the mess they made. But as Rosa had said before, it’ll survive. It had survived Johnny for a long year and a half, Laurie could survive Daniel’s crisis any time.

“I don’t think… I don’t think I can do anything.” He murmured, he felt them both look at him, someone holding his breath. “I’m tired. I tried and tried, and at the end I lacked. I can’t keep living like this…”

“But you have to fight back!” Miguel put a hand on his wrist, making Johnny look at him. He seemed desperate. “You can’t just give up!”

“I’m not—I’m not just giving up. I’m just—”

“So you’re just… gonna let him do what he wants?” Robby asked at his other side. “Dad, come on!”

“Boys—”

“You said you wouldn’t fail us!” Miguel reminded him.

He could see himself driving around with Miguel sitting at his side, the many promises he had made to him as they were alone, as they grew closer. He loved this kid like a son, he was his priority as was Robby—

And he was failing him now as he had Robby his entire life.

Johnny was failing Robby again, too.

His son that believed in him when he probably shouldn’t. That had taken care of him after two days of drinking, that made him stop, that held him when he fell and was still holding him as he kept falling.

There was dirt in his hands, fear all around him.

“Are you two together?” He asked after a long silence.

Miguel gasped, his eyes opened wide as he tried to say something but his words kept failing him, looking like a fish out of the water. Robby was saying nothing, he had an arm crossed over his chest with his free hand covering his mouth.

He blinked, looking up at Johnny.

“Yes.” Robby said.

Miguel sighed, clearing his throat. “Yeah, yeah, we—”

“Why didn't you tell me?” It was more a question to Robby, but he said it aloud anyway. “You know I—” Johnny looked at Miguel, the boy was blinking up to him. “I’m…”

“You can say it.” Robby licked his lips. “It’s not the end of the world.”

“What’s happening right now?” Miguel wondered, looking at Robby, at his  _ boyfriend _ .

Johnny closed his eyes, breathing in and out, listening to the kids’ own respiration, the rapid way his mind was going ever since that afternoon in his office.

His eyes opened. Robby had a hand on his.

“I don’t… I don’t have a name for it yet.” Robby shared, then nodded at Miguel. “He does, though. I think it may fit with you.”

“Oh!” Miguel finally realized, his eyes were comically opened wide. “Oooooh!”

“You’re so dumb…” Robby shook his head, then looked back at Johnny. “Dad?”

“I’m bisexual!” Miguel said quickly. “I’m bi, yeah.”

“You’re into everyone.” Johnny said. It was supposed to be a question, but it came out as something else. Something for himself. “Bisexual.”

“Yup.” Miguel nodded enthusiastically. He was nervous, but excited. “I’m sorry, sensei. I know—we should’ve told you, but we thought… I don’t know.”

“Yeah.” Johnny blinked. He had two father figures growing up, both of them would never like this coming from him. Coming from anyone. Johnny cleared his throat. “Are you guys happy?”

“I mean…” Robby laughed. “I think so?”

“Yes! You say yes, man! You’re making me look like a bad boyfriend in front of your dad!” 

His son laughed louder, the dimples on his face making him look younger.

It reminded him of chasing him around his place as a child, hiding in dusty places, playing Hide and Seek.

He didn’t have to, Johnny realized with Daniel on his mind, he didn’t have to hide.

“I’m proud of you two.” Johnny said, looking at them. Robby’s cheeks went red, but he was smiling. It was the same way Johnny smiled when someone complimented him growing up. “And look, if you are okay with all this—what the hell? I’m happy for you, guys.”

“So you don’t mind?” Miguel frowned, Johnny only nodded. The boy sighed in relief, Robby was laughing again as Miguel put a hand on his chest. “Oh, thank god.”

Johnny looked back at his son, he was smiling at him but there was— _ Just say it. _

_ You’re alright, LaRusso! _

He blinked.

_ Thank you so much! _

“Miguel,”

_ You still got those golden locks! _

The boy looked at him with curious eyes, Robby walked towards him and stood at his side without saying anything. His hand was close to Miguel’s, the boy still had the cast on his right arm, shoulder healing.

_ What is it to you? _

“I’m bisexual,” he swallowed, “too.”

_ Okay. Good luck. _

The words made him dizzy, but the boy smiled from ear to ear, his hand taking Robby’s without thinking. Johnny had never said that word before, or admitted it aloud without treating it like a nasty secret only a few were let into.

_ What kind of man doesn’t? _

“Good!” Miguel said. “Great, great—cool, cool, cool…” He was nervous.

_ I understand. I really do. I do. _

Johnny shook his head. He put a hand on Miguel’s good shoulder, another on Robby’s, and slowly pushed them against his chest. He felt his son pass his arm across his back, Miguel leaning into his hug.

_ I need to stop seeing Bambi, man.  _ He _ is driving me crazy. _

He had no idea of what would be of this thing between him and Daniel, what would it cost to stop Kreese or even how that could ever be. But he had to try. For these boys, for his students, for the scared kids in the parking lot that crawled on the ground to make sure he was okay.

_ John? _

“Okay.” Johnny sighed. “I’ll figure something out.” He promised. “I got this.”

* * *

That weekend, Robby and Miguel went on an actual date, and he sat down outside with Carmen, drinking coffee as they talked of their kids.

He kept texting Daniel, listening to Carmen talk about this new guy she was seeing, making plans of dinners all together, talking of the ways they would put down whoever dared say something about their kids.

To hear all this made his heart beat again, everything slowly going back to normal as his mind cleared. And then, Daniel at his door.

He shoved a new bonsai at him, claimed his table as he apologized again for the mess he did last time, promising to not do a repeat of the scene this time as he sat down and left a bunch of papers on the table.

Johnny blinked, closing the door and looking at the tree in his hands.

“What’s this?”

Daniel smiled, looking guilty. “I—I ruined the last one, so…”

“No.” Johnny said with a sigh, leaving the tree on the table and getting to his room. 

“Johnny?” Daniel asked aloud, but he ignored the call to take Laurie out.

When he turned, Daniel was shyly poking his head through his door, looking around as he blinked. He came in slowly, distracted by whatever he was seeing in Johnny’s bedroom.

The sight of Daniel LaRusso standing in his room made his stomach knott with itself, his heart beating fast in his chest.

Johnny cleared his throat, Daniel looked at him.

“Sorry, I—” He started.

“Shhh.” Johnny exclaimed, walking towards him to show him the tree. “It’s alright.”

Daniel looked down at Laurie, taking it from Johnny’s hands. Their fingers touched for a second, it reminded him of the dealership and everything that had changed ever since.

But the man was smiling now, looking at the new pot and the wire job Robby had done to protect the tree’s size and shape. He didn’t seem surprised like last time, only delighted as he looked up at Johnny again, shining eyes giving the sun a run for its money.

“You really like this tree, uh?”

“Jesus.” He sighed, taking Laurie from him with an almost rude movement. It only made Daniel laugh. “Shut up.”

He put it back on its new table. He had gone with the boys and put his credit card on use, getting Robby proper furniture, a few small and cheap things for the living room, and something for his room at his son’s suggestion.

They had sat in the car, driving in the afternoon, listening to a mix-tape he’d done a million years ago for his mother. He felt her there with him every time, and Johnny had felt his heart growing in size when he realized his son was singing  _ Alison  _ in the backseat as he held Miguel’s hand.

_ Sometimes I wish that I could stop you from talking _

_ When I hear the silly things that you say. _

“It looks like the Miyagi-do bonsai, you know?”

“All of these fuckers look like your dojo’s little tree, LaRusso.”

The man laughed, Johnny turned to see him do so. It was a great view.

Daniel was still looking around, a giddy expression on his face, like he couldn’t believe he was standing here. It made Johnny shake his head and walk towards him.

Tentatively, he put a hand on his waist, the man looked at him immediately.

For long seconds that felt like hours, they just stayed there looking at each other until Johnny realized Daniel was leaning his back on his chest slightly, looking at his lips like that night in his dojo.

After a few more seconds, Daniel smiled at him. “Aren’t you gonna to kiss me?”

Johnny blinked. “I don’t know…” He swallowed. “Last time you disappeared on me.”

“I was—” Daniel cleared his throat. “I’m so sorry.” He grimaced. 

“How do I know you won’t disappear on me again?” 

Daniel blinked a couple of times, biting his bottom lip. He didn’t move from where he was; his back was a warm and solid pressure on his chest, his smell so close it couldn’t be a dream anymore.

“I’ll tell you a secret.”

He remembered.

“Okay.”

He put a hand over Johnny’s on his waist, readying himself to speak.

Whatever Daniel was to say, it was important.

“I always liked you.” He confessed, Johnny’s breathing stopped. “I don’t know… when it happened. But there was a point when I could find you anywhere. It pissed off Ali, I actually think she hates us.”

“Definitely.”

The man laughed, his cheeks were red. 

“So, what do you say?”

Johnny moved his head to one side, blinking. “I like you.”

It made Daniel smile. 

Whatever this was, it was happening now.

Johnny leaned down, closing his eyes as his lips touched Daniel’s.

He was warm, all of him was always the warmest presence and color in the room. It made him gravitate towards him ever since they were young and had tried to ruin each other, but now all he wanted was him and his time, his every midnights and storms.

Daniel put a hand on his jaw, caressing his skin with his long fingers as the kiss deepened.

It was a strange angle to kiss, but he’ll treasure the moment forever.

They went apart with a loud noise and mirror stupid smiles.

Daniel moved, turning around completely and rounding Johnny’s neck with his arms, pulling him for another kiss. He cradled his face with both hands and took the invitation when the man opened his mouth wider to let him in.

He could spend the rest of his day—the weekend, the year, his entire life— like this, just kissing Daniel and swallowing all his little happy sounds.

Just for a second, he wished they would’ve been more like Robby and Miguel. He wished they could have figured it out a long time ago, when they were kids and Daniel would smile at him reading classic books aloud.

But their kids had come. Every stumble and fall had brought them here, their coming of age had come and go— 

Their time was now.

“Seriously?” Johnny asked later as they sat at his table again, looking through all the papers and cards the man had brought. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Choose a lawyer and call.” Daniel said slowly, like talking to a small child or a drunk person. Johnny narrowed his eyes at him. “See all this? Resume! Read it, choose one, call.”

He rolled his eyes, but said nothing— it was the best he could do for now that didn’t involve illegal shit like burning down the place or beating the shit out of a senior citizen. 

_ “No!” _ Robby had said earlier that day as they were brainstorming what to do.  _ “You can’t go to jail!” _ And he had hit him on the face with the towel he was using to dry the dishes they were cleaning.  _ “What about me?!” _

The kid was right, he had nothing to do in jail right now— he couldn’t keep failing his son, no one else in his life. He wouldn’t abandon his kid ever again.

“What’s so funny?” Daniel asked.

Johnny looked up from the paper he hadn’t been reading, Daniel was looking at him from over the ones he had been checking. He could only see his eyes, and he could tell the man was still nervous, like waiting for something.

“Just remembered something Robby said today, is all.” He sighed. “So—you just came to fill my place with papers?”

“Yes.” Daniel answered, the stubborness in his voice made Johnny smile. “What else would I be here for?”

“I don’t know,” he sighed, “maybe you missed me.”

“With those god awful texts? No, thank you.”

Johnny laughed, shaking his head. He felt lighter than he had in days with Daniel’s taste lingering in his lips.

“Come on, Bambi.” He said, standing up. “Let’s get out of here.”

“What? Johnny, we have to—”

“And we’ll do it.” He assured, standing in front of him. “But I’m starving and my kid’s on a date with the other boy I care for as a son.” He arched an eyebrow at him. “I  _ need _ a drink.”

Daniel blinked a couple of times, moving his head to one side and oh—oh fuck. Johnny bit the inside of his cheek. Daniel didn’t know. He couldn’t help but mentally celebrate the fact that, for the first time, Robby had wanted Johnny to know something before Daniel.

“Robby and Miguel…?”

“Yep.” Johnny shrugged. “Holding hands and going on dates, all that jazz.”

The man bit his bottom lip, his eyes never leaving Johnny’s. He finally stood up, taking his phone from the table and putting it in his dressing pant’s pocket. 

“I didn’t know Robby...” 

“Doesn’t have a name yet.” He informed him. “It’s not a problem, though.”

Daniel smiled bright and wide at him, and Johnny realized just how much he had missed that stupid toothy grin of his.

“No, it’s not.”

_ This isn’t a problem. _

“Uhm.” Daniel blinked. “So they didn’t have to spend thirty years thinking of what if?”

Johnny chuckled, pushing Daniel towards the entrance gently. “No, apparently you can just like some guy you used to hate.”

“Damn,they really figured it out without making excuses to beat each other up for thirty years…”

He shook his head, laughing with the man as they got out the apartment.

“Where are we going?” Daniel asked.

Johnny looked around. The building was lonely most days, but he still— maybe one day he wouldn’t care, but he smiled at Daniel and quickly kissed his cheek.

“You wanna go on a date?”

Daniel’s eyebrows lifted high, his mouth slightly opened.

“Ye— a date? Like, an actual date?”

“Mhm.”

He blinked a couple of times, a tiny smile appearing on his face.

“Yes.”

* * *

Daniel’s touch felt like velvet, but left a mark in him every time.

It figured to Johnny like passing your finger through dusty furniture, leaving your mark on something that hasn’t been touched in so long, it begs to be cleaned up and displayed again.

The way the man responded to his hands and lips amazed him and left him searching for more, the curiosity of discovering each other’s bodies and likes as new as if they were as young as they were when they met.

In his tiny place, as the boys went to school and Daniel finished his divorce and they figured out what to do next, they laid on Johnny’s bed and laughed against each other’s mouths.

There wasn’t much he could do legally speaking, papers spoke all lies and dirty tricks Johnny never thought of and it would be easier and cheaper to trick Kreese back. But there was no trick in the world that could make that old dog leave the bone alone, something else had to be done.

“We’ll figure something out.” Was all Daniel could say as he tried to smile.

But Johnny knew there was nothing they could do. Deep in his heart, he knew all he could do was to move on and start over. And yet—he was doing none of it.

Johnny distracted himself with work, odd jobs here and there, still searching for something estable that could allow him keep Robby safe and healthy, give him the closest he could to a good life.

It overwhelmed him, to hear Miguel talk of his students that hadn’t accepted Kreese, moving to other dojos—Aisha, Bert and Zack were with Daniel now— and still asking what  _ he  _ was going to do, and if Miguel was still doing karate.

“I’d rather train in this living room than go with anyone else.” Miguel had said without looking up, stuffing his mouth with as much food as he could when everyone at the Daiz’s table went silent.

Daniel had looked at him half amused, half sad after Johnny told him about it. There was a cocktail of emotions in that face— some sort of pride, a little bit of jealousy. He smiled at him anyway, put his hands on Johnny’s face and let him melt on his touch, let him take as much time as he needed.

He woke up almost every day to the sun filtering through the semi-open blinds, making sunshine marks on Daniel’s back. He could write his name on it with his fingers, count the beauty marks on him as the man slept through it all, guard down—safe in here, where the world would never look for him.

As the days went by, and many things changed, these little moments became his soil and water in the middle of the mess that was his life. Because he could laugh with this man forever, he could simply live off his light and kisses.

They laid down in the afterglow, completely naked in the daylight without shame, and they would just be there in silence, giggling and sighing, as he thought  _ there’s nothing else like this. _

“Why don’t you come teach with me at Miyagi-do?” Daniel said as they laid on Johnny’s bed.

“Nah.” He answered, it wasn’t the first time.

Hell, Robby had told him as well. It was starting to become annoying.

_ “What did you give these people?” _ His son had said with a frown during dinner a few days ago.  _ “Do you know how annoying they are all day talking about you? It’s getting hard to be  _ balanced _.” _

Johnny hadn’t known what to say as he never knew what to really answer to Daniel when he talked of Miyagi-do and working together. The boy was amused, looking at him wanting to see his every reaction, knowing how overwhelmed it made him to know these kids were loyal to him in spite of everything.

_ “Maybe if you went and took Mr. L’s offer, things would be better.” _

Daniel sighed at his side now, moving on the bed to lay his head on Johnny’s shoulder, kissing the skin there to make him look down. Their eyes met and Johnny felt his heart grow in size at the sight.

“I’m not trying to fill that hole in your heart, like a replacement—”

“LaRusso—”

“But I think you love this, and you’re good at it—and I could use the help, you know?” He sighed. “Plus, It would piss off Kreese.”

Johnny shook his head. “Why do you want to piss him off even more?”

“I just think it’ll be sweet when my kids win the tournament next year, he’ll probably feel humiliated and all that shit he blames Miyagi-do for. Hell, maybe he’ll leave.”

“Oh, so you guys are winning next year?”

“Yeah, we are.” He said, and Johnny didn’t doubt he meant it. “Would be easier if the current champion was in our team, of course.”

“So all this is just a hoax to get Miguel in your dojo?”

“Honestly, it’s more of a way to get you wearing a gi again.” The man said, a joking tone in his voice.

Daniel moved, cuddling himself closer to Johnny. He was a warm person overall, if it was anybody else, Johnny would be pushing him away—it was getting hot. But it was Daniel, and only Daniel.

He rounded the man with his arms, sighing as they became a tangled mess of limbs.

“You got a thing for gis now?”

“Mmm…” Daniel seemed to think of it, Johnny wondered what he was really thinking. “I got a thing for the sensei in it.”

Johnny’s stomach dropped, he tried his best not to show it but—he became tense, Daniel chuckle slowly looking up with a cocky grin and Jesus fuck, when had he become this?

“You like that!” He said, his smirk becoming bigger. “God, sensei, imagine the sparring and the—”

“SHUT UP!” He turned away, letting go of Daniel as the man laughed. “Fuck, Daniel—don’t… put that in my head. It’s too early for that.”

The man had stopped laughing, Johnny looked at his side slowly to find him staring. There was something soft in his eyes, a gleam Johnny had started to relate to their happy moments, days they wanted to keep forever.

He moved his hand, holding Daniel’s chin with two fingers.

“What?”

“You never call me by my name.” He murmured. “And the only time you did, it was…”

For a second, Johnny frowned, not understanding what Daniel was saying—but it came to him like lighting: Daniel’s surprised and sad face that afternoon in the office of Cobra Kai. his eyes had grown in size, the devastation on his face something he would rather not think of.

_ Go away, Daniel. _

He was right, he had never called him that to his face before until that moment. 

It meant something to Daniel if he was bringing it up, if he had looked that shaken up when it happened. Johnny swallowed, looking back at him.

“I’m sorry.”

Daniel shook his head. “It’s okay.” He sighed. “I have this now.” The man smiled. “I’ll go through all that again just to have this.”

Johnny blinked, brain barely processing what was happening right now—he shook his head with a smile, leaning down to capture Daniel’s lips in a soft kiss.

“Daniel,” He said against his lips, the man smiled. “Daniel...”

The sun was hitting their skin, but its warmth felt like nothing compared to this.

“Daniel,” he called as the man laughed, moving his head to one side to let him kiss and mark his neck better.

Johnny moved until he was on top of him, hands roaming around freely, hearts beating in sync.

“Daniel,” he sighed against his skin, going down slowly as he kissed every bit of him, “Fuck— Daniel,”

Even after all he’d lost, Johnny was allowed to have Daniel, keep his son, the family across the hallway that had adopted them. He was allowed to have this and live this moment, finally clean.

“Daniel...”

There really was nothing else like this.

* * *

One day, as he was getting ready for a job, someone knocked at his door.

The kids had their own key, Johnny knew Miguel was at someone's house doing some school project, while Robby was at Miyagi-do. Him and Daniel would be busy almost all afternoon, so he had opened the door with a frown.

He stayed there, looking at the girl in front of him for long seconds, until she shifted her weight from one foot to the other and cleared her throat.

“I heard you’re training Diaz here.” Tory said. “I want in, too.”

Johnny closed his eyes for a few seconds, opening them again with a lost expression. “What? No, I’m not—”

“I can still pay!” She said. Johnny opened his mouth to say ‘no’ again when he realized something. “It can be just a few days a week, if you prefer.”

He watched her stand there, nervously playing with the tips of her hair as she talked with confidence in spite of the fear in her eyes. She wasn’t—Tory wasn’t afraid of  _ him _ . 

She wasn’t afraid of no one, the only time he had ever seen her show anything akin to fear had been the day he asked why she had missed a payment in the dojo.

Back then, as she softly talked of her home situation, it had looked to him that she needed Cobra Kai. 

Not just to become stronger but to finally be the badass she projected on the exterior. She had needed the company, Aisha and Miguel’s friendship.

She didn’t have them anymore. 

“Shit…” Johnny sighed, biting the inside of his cheek as he looked at the girl in front of him. “Nichols, for fuck’s sake—”

“Please?” She murmured, making her lips into a white line on her face. “It’s just… I can’t be there anymore, but I can’t just go back home where he is…” The girl swallowed visibly. “I can’t.”

_ He  _ seemed like Sid. Johnny blinked a couple of times, thinking of the many ways Kreese had beat and yelled the fear out of him as a kid, how it had never worked—he had simply replaced the monster at home with one in a cooler-looking costume.

Johnny shook his head. “Tomorrow at four, Nichols.”

The girl smiled from ear to ear, nodding. He cleared his throat.

“Oh. Yeah.” She looked up. “Yes, sensei.”

Daniel gave him a look when he talked about it, he had told him a while back his daughter had left karate and seemed like another person. That she had asked her mother not to proceed against Tory, accepted her faults and didn’t complain when grounded.

They were still adjusting to the aftermath of what had happened, and so was Tory. It was what he’d told the man and his son, what he told Miguel the next day, what he told himself as he had the kids standing in his living room, looking at him expectantly.

It was the weirdest of stars, but it was one.

Another day, he opened the door to Tory and another kid near the age of Daniel’s kid. The boy had been smiling, happily saying ‘hi’ to Miguel who had called him by his name. Richie wanted to see his sister train, following her movements as they practiced a new kick.

“You know how you would avoid giving class in the living room?” Daniel said on the phone that night.

Johnny sighed, knowing exactly what was coming. “How?”

“If you came to Miyagi-do with me.”

“Daniel—”

“Don’t  _ Daniel _ me if you are just going to reject me again.” He warned, Johnny gave in. “John, honestly—I really don’t understand why not.”

“Because it’s your dojo.” He said, swallowing the knot in his throat. “Your kids.” Johnny sighed. “And our styles just don’t go.”

“They could.” Daniel suggested, sounding pensive. “I think they could.”

Like many times before, Johnny just shook his head, wishing the theme would change soon.

And then one day, Daniel called at three in the morning to say he was leaving.

“What—what does that mean?”

“It’s not gonna be long, it’s just—” He heard him swallow. “Look, I’ll come in the morning and explain myself better. I just… I needed to talk to someone because…”

“What’s wrong?”

Daniel sighed heavily on the other side of the line, then cleared his throat.

“My—my mentor’s best friend is on his deathbed.” He said, voice shaking. “And he’s family, he—he’s done so much for me, he did so much for Mr. Miyagi and he asked… he asked for me.”

Johnny could almost see it, some old guy on his bed, asking to see the lanky kid he knew so long ago. He closed his eyes, knowing he was in no position to object to such a thing, hell—he had left everything behind just to have one more day with Tommy.

He understood.

He understood as he held Daniel in the morning, gently massaging his back and wishing the man would lose up just a tiny bit. The tension on his muscles reminded him of how closed up Daniel had grown up to be, how much he hid inside himself for the longest time, how difficult it was for him to show weakness.

Johnny had learned to cry as an adult.

With time, he had learned to let go and cleanse his soul with a good cry, especially when drunk out of his mind, unable to remember the next day what had he said and done—but lighter, always lighter.

Daniel didn’t have the luxury of crying, of allowing himself to be weak and held.

So he held him, he held him as he shivered against his body in the bedroom of his tiny apartment with the sunlight hitting the bonsai just so, it looked golden.

* * *

Robby joined practice, seemed pissed at the girl in their apartment but bowed at her when sparring and didn’t complain when she won a point or even the match.

He seemed to like the company of little Richie, sometimes pulling him into their line and teaching him basic stances and movements. Tory watched them every time, seemed to think of it and analyse his son’s every move. 

Then, one day, she didn’t. 

She let her little brother be taught by Robby and him, and soon, he had another student in the clandestine dojo the kids have made off his living room.

“I miss Mr. L…” Robby said as they ate take-out. 

“Who’s Mr. L?” Tory asked, sitting at the table with them. 

“Mr. LaRusso.” Miguel answered for his boyfriend, eying Tory carefully as if to ask her to not make any comments. 

The girl looked down, awkwardly taking her box with food again and stuffing her mouth with noodles.

“I really miss him.” Robby incisted, looking sadly at his food.

Johnny shook his head. “What you miss is his food.”

Robby sighed with a frown. “Yeah…”

“God, you’re the worst.” Miguel rolled his eyes. “Have you heard of him, though?”

The boy nodded but didn’t share much. Johnny bit his tongue inside his mouth, remembering the way Daniel had cried on the phone the morning Sato had died and how guilty he had sounded when saying he’d stay a few days more.

He could hear it in his voice. There was much more than losing someone that had been family.

Whatever Daniel was doing in Okinawa, it was important enough for him to leave things here for the time being. It figured to him like he may need it to find his sensei again, finally grieving the man as he should’ve many years ago.

Maybe this time, Daniel could finally let go and become the good sensei he truly was; not a shadow of what his own mentor had been.

“Don’t you miss Mr. LaRusso, dad?” Robby asked.

Johnny could feel all eyes on him, he swallowed and looked at his pup only.

“Yeah.” He admitted. It became easier each time. “I’m tired of frozen meals and take-out.”

The boy rolled his eyes, smiling as the other two laughed. This wasn’t bad at all.

He had been thinking of it when someone knocked at his door. Robby ran to open while Tory helped Miguel put all the trash on the bin and Johnny cleaned up the table, Richie doing homework in the living room with music his son had put on.

“Dad?” He heard him call, Johnny looked back to find two girls standing there.

“Hi, sensei!” Aisha said happily, Tory came out of the kitchen with wide open eyes. “Oh, there she is!”

“I can’t do this—”

“Sam!”

That’s how he found himself sitting on Carmen and Rosa’s chairs outside their apartment, looking at the three girls talking animatedly near the Challenger. He saw Samantha and Tory talk with Aisha standing a few steps behind, until both nodded at each other and shook hands.

And that was how he later found himself with Aisha and Samantha in front of him.

“I guess it’s true you’ve been training Diaz and Tory, sensei?” Aisha asked. There was a tiny bit of disbelief.

Johnny swallowed. “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “It’s temporal, though, we are not—”

“Got space for one more?” She asked hopefully, Johnny swallowed visibly, making them giggle.

“I don’t… I don’t know. I don’t think we actually have space.” He answered, still wondering why Samantha LaRusso was in front of him.

Did this include her? Daniel was going to murder him.

“About that!” Aisha said, matter-of-factly. “If you take me in, we can use my dad’s private gym.” She offered. “It’s not a dojo, but it’s private and spacious enough for the six of us.”

Johnny blinked. “Six?”

“Yeah. Miguel, Tory, Richie, Keene, Sam and I.”

Johnny blinked again, feeling the start of a killer headache at the sides of his head. He could almost hear Daniel and Amanda yelling at him from the possible future if he accepted this shit. He cleared his throat, shaking his head no.

“No way.” He said. “No, I’m sorry, I’m not gonna—” Johnny stood up, trying to walk away. “Your father will finally murder me if he finds out you’re training under me, kid.”

“But what is he gonna say? He left!” Sam finally spoke. Johnny looked back at her. “He’s gone, okay? And he said I could go back to karate whatever way I wanted, well—he’ll have to deal with it.”

Johnny shook his head, talking to Sam only. “So this is what it’s about.” He cleared his throat. “You just want to piss him off.”

“No.” She swallowed visibly, looking up at him with firm eyes. “I want to—I want to fight and I want to win.” She frowned. “Your dojo won the last tournament, maybe we can do it too.”

“What?” He murmured, it was more for himself than for the kids.

“We think that—” He heard from his door, Miguel and Robby were standing there. Miguel cleared his throat and kept talking. “Tory agrees with us, that maybe if one of us wins the tournament and we eliminate all of Kreese’s students… It’ll show him that he’s not gonna win.”

Johnny blinked a couple of times with his heart in his throat, eyes feeling watery as the kids stood there, watching him, expectating, wanting him to do something.

“So you planned this?” He asked, thought he suspected it was just an affirmation at this point. 

“Not really.” Tory admitted. “We… Miguel and I talked about entering the tournament when it comes around, but then Aisha said that LaRusso wanted to talk, and she had this idea of her dad’s gym… so…”

“This is an ambush?”

Samantha smiled at him, cocky like her father. She looked so much like him standing there with that smile, it was like seeing Daniel back in high school.

“Yes.”

And it worked just like Daniel’s magic.

* * *

On the second day, Robby brought in some of the kids in Daniel’s advanced class and Johnny kept wondering what he would tell the man on the phone.

They talked mostly in the early morning, and he never thought he’d be so into someone, he'd wake up just to talk to them as the sun rose. But he did it for Daniel, and every time he tried to tell him what was happening, something would excuse him from doing so.

So, instead, he said a half truth. “So Aisha came by, and wanted me to train her.”

“Are you stealing my students while I’m gone?”

“Shut up, she was my student first.” He shook his head at Daniel’s amused laugh. “Anyway, I… I’m training the kids now.”

“Johnny, that’s great!” He sounded genuine, it made Johnny’s heart wrinkle a little. “Now, imagine if we get your students into Miyagi-do…”

“I’m hanging up.”

On Friday, as he and Robby got ready to walk out and drive to Aisha’s, Miguel came in with a timid expression. When he went outside, he found Eli there with a black eye.

Johnny sighed, knowing exactly what was coming, feeling something flourish in his stomach as he walked towards the kid.

His hair was down, still red but dark on the roots. It reminded him of Laurie.

“Sensei.” He said, but there weren’t any more words. 

The boy tried clearing his throat, taking his fist up to his mouth to cover his lips and Johnny frowned—he hadn’t seen him do that in a very long time.

He also saw his knuckles.

“Give me.” He asked, taking Eli’s hand gently and looking at the healing cuts on his knuckles. “Hit until you bleed, uh?”

After a few tense seconds, the boy only nodded.

“It’s a stupid technique.” Johnny said, letting go of his hand. “Hurting your knuckles won’t make them stronger, it’ll slow you down until they heal.” He sighed. “How does it feel?”

Eli looked up, seeming timid for the first time in a while. “Like shit.”

It wasn’t about his hands.

Johnny nodded.

“Wanna tag along?”

The boy nodded, Johnny pushed him gently towards the Challenger, but Eli passed an arm around his waist and Johnny sighed. He held Eli there, thinking of Dutch in juvie when they were young and his parents had refused to help and Kreese had called him a loser for getting caught.

He held him as he thought of Bobby crying about having hurt Daniel, as he remembered Tommy looking at him with a frown from across the mat when they fought at the tournament, as he felt for Jimmy always being pushed down by Kreese for not keeping up with the others and being shy.

Johnny held Eli, as he thought of himself sitting in that parking lot with his sensei’s hands marked on his neck.

“Hawk came back.” He told Daniel the next morning.

The man gasped on the other side of the world. “Really? Johnny, I—what did you do?”

“Well,” He swallowed, suddenly unsure of his decision. “I let him join the class.”

“What?” Daniel sounded alarmed. “Why? Johnny, he hurt Robby, remember? He has tormented Demetri ever since becoming a big fighter and—”

“He’s just a kid, man.” Johnny defended. “How was I any better back then, uh? Or any of the boys? Dutch, Tommy?” He sighed. “I know it’s hard to understand, but I know this kid…” Johnny sat down at his table with Laurie in front of him. “He just needs another chance.”

Daniel said nothing for what felt like forever. 

He looked at the tree, trying to not overthink his silence. He put a finger on the soil, felt it humid still and sighed, taking the scissor as he held the phone between his shoulder and his ear.

“And if it doesn’t work?”

“Well, then it doesn’t work.” Johnny said. “But it will, Daniel. You should’ve seen it, his knuckles—I know what Kreese is doing. He wanted him to lose every sparring exercise because his knuckles were fucked so he could justify a more brutal and aggressive training.” He swallowed. “God, I remember when he did it to me. I was fourteen.”

Once more, Daniel said nothing.

“Silver did that to me, too.” He confessed.

Johnny took a deep breath.

“Then you understand.” Johnny risked saying. “You know what it's like to be told you are not any good if you aren’t like them.”

He could tell Daniel was thinking. Johnny could see him bite his bottom lip, look unsure and slightly annoyed that he hadn’t been in the right. It made him smile and miss him even more.

“Have you seen Robby do the breathing exercises I taught him?”

“Yeah.” He remembered his son doing them every time before and after training. “What about it?”

“Teach them to… Hawk.”

“Eli.” Johnny offered. He smiled at the phone when Daniel didn’t answer for a while. “Did you nod?”

“Yeah, shut up.” He chuckled. “Anyway, teach them to Eli. It may… it may help.”

_ Teach him when you come back _ , he wanted to say.

Johnny left the scissors on the table, surprised with himself. 

He wouldn’t lie to his own head anymore, he had been thinking of it. The more he looked at the way Samantha used his lessons and added her father’s, the more he liked what he saw, the way she controlled herself during a match and was so… unpredictable.

“I need to talk to you…” Johnny sighed. “About something important.”

“What is it?” Daniel asked, sounding worried.

“It’s nothing bad, relax.” Johnny smiled, going back to pruning the bonsai. “I mean, you’re gonna be so annoying about it, but look… I’ve mentally prepared myself for that.”

“Oh.” Daniel laughed, it filled Johnny’s chest with warmth. “Are you putting on the gi for me?”

“For fuck’s sake, Bambi…” He shook his head. “This early and you’re already thinking of sex?”

“I haven’t seen you in almost three weeks.” He sounded almost pained. Johnny bite his bottom lip. “I need my fix.”

“Oh, you miss my cock. It’s that what you’re saying?”

“Jesus!” Daniel groaned. “Why do I even bother with you? Fucking caveman!”

Johnny laughed, biting on his tongue to stop. His son was still asleep...

“How can you say that when your son is around? You’ve no shame, sensei.”

“Fuck.” He shook his head. “Don’t talk to me like that, baby, It’ll be worse.” Daniel giggled. “But Robby is in his room, sleeping with his boyfriend that I’m sure has been sneaking in every few days thinking I can’t hear him when he gets out.”

_ Miguel  _ was still asleep.

“What?”

“They don’t know I wake up early to talk to you.” He said. “So, I’m sitting in the diner area, waiting for the kid to come out to remind him we said no one was sneaking to anybody’s bed.”

“Ugh.” Daniel sounded  _ fatherly  _ disgusted, it made Johnny smile. “If I was you, I’ll be locking Robby every night.”

“It’s not about them hating me, they ain’t Romeo and Juliett.” Johnny reminded him. “Damn, your daughter must hate taking a boyfriend to meet you.”

“Hey!”

“I’m just saying…” Johnny sighed, thinking of the girl showing him her favorite kata. “All they need to know is that there’s rules in the house. They can do whatever when I’m gone.”

“Johnny!”

“They are teenagers! What? You didn’t have sex or did  _ stuff  _ when the house was alone?”

The man gasped but said nothing, Johnny arched an eyebrow.

“Holy shit, you didn’t.” He tried not to smile too much. “Daniel, when did you lose your virginity?”

“Who cares about that shit?”

“Oh my god, that old?”

“I’m hanging up!”

“No, no, no, I’m sorry!” He laughed, shaking his head. “Come on, I can’t believe you didn’t do  _ things _ as a teen. Why?”

Daniel cleared his throat. “I don’t think this is a conversation I want to have right now.”

He shook his head again. “Fuck, Bambi… I miss you.”

“I miss you, too.” He could almost hear the smile on his voice. “Although, I don’t miss you calling me Bambi.”

“Why not? It’s cute!”

“So I’m cute now?”

Johnny shook his head. “Only hearing what you want, uh?”

Daniel laughed on the other side of the world, making Johnny feel butterflies in his stomach as if they were kids again. It had been so long since he felt this way, it made him a more honest man.

“Yeah,” he said, “you’re cute.”

It gave him the chance to talk to him for another hour.

* * *

Daniel came back to a full dojo and a cleared mind.

Johnny had gone to the airport to pick him up, not mentioning Robby and Sam were going with him. The girl had been nervous to see her father, said they weren’t on the best terms when he left and she hadn’t truly thought of how to explain her decisions.

A part of him was afraid of it, too.

What if this is not what Daniel wanted at the end? What if he heard he’d been training his students in his absence and he realizes he actually didn’t want to?

The memory of Sam sitting on the floor with Eli at her side as Tory talked to them calmed him down. He watched them slowly let go of their prejudices and grudges, listening to him in class and following Samantha’s words when she taught them katas.

Daniel should be proud of his daughter. The fierce little lady could run the dojo by herself if she wanted, but she had wanted this—she had joined his kids and they—

They chose him again. 

His kids, in spite of everything, came back to him and chose him once more.

Truth was, they were all good kids. With strong roots, and a determination he couldn’t find in himself even if he tried. They taught him more than he taught them, and it became even more evident as the days passed by and he started to feel more like himself.

It was then that Johnny realized why Daniel had insisted so much on him going back to karate, hopefully into a dojo where Daniel could see him and make sure he was okay.

He just hadn’t been Johnny Lawrence in a while.

Daniel’s eyes opened wide and happy when they met among the crowded waiting area. He started to walk faster, smiling brightly until he was close enough to notice the two teens standing with Johnny.

He stopped walking, eyes full of surprise and—what was that? Guilt? Fear? Maybe it was all of it, at the sight of the daughter he hadn’t been okay with in months.

The man started to walk again, Sam sighed and smiled wide.

She started to sing when he got closer.

“Big in Japan,” she signaled her father, making a little dance as she sang, “Ooh the eastern sea's so blueeeeeee…”

Johnny snorted and laughed loudly, Robby started to laugh at his side but immediately followed her lead.

“ Big in Japan,” The boy sang, making an awkward dance with her as Johnny and Daniel laughed. 

“Alright!” They clapped. “Pay, then I'll sleep by your sideeee…”

Daniel shook his head, standing near them as the kids finished their little number.

“Things are easy when you're biiig in Japaaaaaaan…”

“Oooh, when you're big in Japaaaaan!” they finished.

“Please,” Daniel shook his head. “Never sing that again…”

“Why not?” She asked, acting amused to hide her nervousness.

“Because it’s about junkies!” He informed her as she gasped.

“Well, that’s better than what I was told…” Robby murmured, looking at Johnny. “I think it was uncle Dutch who told me it was about having an erection.”

Johnny closed his eyes, shaking his head no. “I’m begging you to never listen to what that man says.” He opened his eyes again, looking at his son with a frown. “Never.”

Robby laughed with Sam as Daniel shook his head, he pushed his son with him to leave Sam and her father alone, giving them some space. They looked at the LaRussos as Daniel swallowed visibly.

“Hey you.” He said like a dork, Johnny couldn’t help but smile. “Didn’t know you were coming.”

She sighed. “Me neither.” Sam smiled at him regardless. “You look tired…”

“I am tired.” Daniel admitted. He didn’t look like the mess he was months ago when his divorce process started. But he had bags under his eyes, pale lips —he looked like he could use a week of sleep. “You look great, though.”

“I took a shower!” She sang back. “I’m—” Sam sighed, giving in.

She walked towards Daniel, opening her arms to hug him. Daniel hugged her back with closed eyes, strong enough to last a lifetime and Johnny smiled at the sight. Little by little, all the pieces of their lives were finally fitting where they should.

Johnny turned around with his pup, passing an arm over his shoulders as Robby passed one around his waist. They walked away, talking about dinner plans, as they gave the LaRussos the space they needed.

* * *

“So, you  _ were  _ stealing my students while I was gone…”

“Shut up, you stole my kid and my students first.”

Daniel chuckled, shaking his head as they lay down on the floor of an empty Miyagi-do.

They didn’t spend much time here, Johnny didn’t like to leave Robby alone for the night and so, Daniel always ended up sleeping at his little place. 

But in here, everything was light and green, and smelled of Daniel everywhere.

It rounded him like in dreams, making those look smaller compared to the reality he was living now. He didn’t want to say it was like a dream come true, those generally end in nothing and he’s always left crabbing for more. And this, he didn’t want it to end.

“Is this what you wanted to tell me?”

“Yeah...” Johnny sighed. “I’m actually… well, I’m surprised at how well you’re taking it.”

Daniel nodded. “I did feel weird when you said it.” He admitted. “But I was told recently that I never listen and that’s how I ruin myself.”

Whoever he had talked to in Okinawa, it had cleared his mind in a way Johnny was almost afraid of. But Daniel didn’t look away, he moved his hand to Johnny’s face and caressed his cheek. Johnny leaned into the touch, hoping it would last forever.

“So?”

“I’ll do it.” Johnny said, blinking. “I’ll come teach here with you.”

Daniel’s eyes shone before he even smiled, it brightened his entire face and his heart hurt, it hurt so good, Johnny had to kiss him.

Their coming of age had come and gone, the Summer had ended, and every corner was finally clean. After the heat and the rain, it was all finally clean and free of dust.

“I missed you.” Johnny confessed against Daniel’s skin, kissing under his belly before going down and down. 

They’ve been almost four weeks away from each other, touching him right now felt like coming home, like taking away dust from places that should never go untouched. 

Daniel called him each time, mouth open wide and eyes closed, arching his hips and back as Johnny’s hands and mouth marked him everywhere. And here in the dark, it was all he ever needed. 

Here they could be everything to each other, and anything if they wanted to. 

Johnny could kiss Daniel in the afterglow and realize this, this was making love. He could kiss his smile and then be hit with his laugh against his mouth, his warmth going through places that never knew light.

It was here where cold didn’t burn, where the light didn’t blind, where tiny furniture became a man.

* * *

To make room for all the new advanced class, they moved the furniture with the kids.

“This is why I don’t like it here,” Demitri said as he pretended to help carry a table with Tory and Aisha, “we are just used for labour.”

“I’ll make you clean up the bathrooms so you know what work is if you keep that up, kid.” Johnny warned, the boy looked at him with a frown.

He arched an eyebrow, he let go of the table he was not helping with and nodded.

“Yes, sensei.”

“To the back with the others!” He signaled, making the girls laugh as they finally landed the thing where Daniel had suggested to put it. “You girls okay?”

“Yeah, it wasn’t actually heavy.” Tory answered. “Now, why is that muppet in the advanced class?” She asked.

“Don’t underestimate a lanky lad, Miss Nichols.” Daniel said, leaving under the table a tiny bonsai. Baby bonsai. “It’s not about muscles, it’s about this.” He pointed his head with a finger.

She nodded, sighing deeply before looking back at where a shirtless Eli and a shirtless Robby were hanging a punching bag.

“Must admit, I do like the muscles.”

Daniel laughed, standing close to Johnny. He smirked at the man, touching the zipper of his hoodie, trying hard not to simply touch him. The man gave him a pointed look, Johnny showed his hands as if to say he didn’t do anything, Daniel shook his head and left.

He bit his bottom lip, walking away to look at their work.

Cobra Kai under Kreese was still going strong, but this was good and maybe, if they finally did things right, it would be enough if they trained these kids in the way they needed. Maybe they could win like that—tournaments and trophies aside—maybe they could win by balancing his bad seeds with their kids that chose them.

As the kids rested inside, talking of new uniforms and colors for tournaments and presentations, Johnny found Daniel in the yard.

He had been on the phone minutes ago, but he was now just looking at the work Robby and Demitri had done as they showed the others the way Daniel had taught them. Johnny couldn’t tell if it was good or even what the man wanted, but he liked what he saw.

Daniel turned around, smiling at him.

He really liked what he saw.

“So,” Daniel murmured, walking towards him until they were close enough to be themselves, but not too close to make the kids roll their eyes, “I’m officially a divorcee now!”

“Oh.” Johnny frowned. “Wait, you weren’t already? I’m a homewrecker now?”

Daniel punched his shoulder, hard enough to make him lose his balance, but he was laughing with pink cheeks.

“No, no, we…” Daniel swallowed. “We weren’t a couple anymore, so…”

“I know.” Johnny patted on Daniel’s chin with a finger, two times. “Uhm.” He smirked at him again, knowing the effect it would have on the man. “Never dated a divorcee before.”

“Oh, so we are dating?”

“What do you call fucking every night after dinner, Bambi?”

“God…” Daniel shook his head, walking away not before pushing Johnny’s shoulder with his. “I can’t stand you.”

“You love me!” Johnny answered, not really thinking of what he said.

Daniel looked back at him and—

The sun hit him through a tree just right, making a halo that seemed like nothing when he smiled. The wrinkles around his eyes looked golden in the daylight, his toothy smile just like in dreams—making him breathless and weak.

_ What is it to you? _

“John,” he said with that smile, shaking his head.

It was just Daniel, Daniel in the greenery and the light. 

Johnny followed him inside, where Robby could revive his heart with the rhythm of his. Where Miguel could teach that heart to embrace and to give. Where Daniel could caress its most sensitive stories and held it close, so close, all he could feel was him, and him, and him…

* * *

Laurie stood against the soon, now planted nicely in the garden where Johnny had chosen.

His kids were laughing inside with Daniel’s, they were trying to give shit to Robby and Miguel for being found kissing earlier the day. But his son and his pupil were having none of it, sitting close by and holding hands without shame.

_ “What are they gonna do? Hit us? The All-Valley champions of first and second place? Let them try.” _ Robby had said when Daniel asked about how they would deal with bigots.

It had made him smile, had put a surprised expression on Daniel, but let him with a clearer mind as he suddenly realized—this was not the 80s anymore, and they could simply exist and be.

“What do you think?” Daniel said at his side, Johnny looked at him.

He had let his grey hair show as suggested by him, he looked all his peaceful self now, even if the tournament was so close and Kreese had been pestering about war over and over for weeks.

Johnny took his hand, taking his fingers to his lips.

“It’s perfect.”

“And you are kissing dirt, ugh.” Daniel frowned. “What the hell, man?”

Johnny shook his head, “Who cares?” He sighed. “There’s nothing else like this.”

The man smiled at him, pulling on Johnny’s hand until they were close enough to steal a kiss before heading back inside, their tournament training about to start.

Starting today, Johnny and Robby had officially moved in with Daniel. 

It had been a rocky path, with its ups and downs—days when they would genuinely fight over lessons and what was better for each student, and days when their ideas of what was best for Robby would crash and burn.

But Daniel stood at his side, smiling wide as Johnny made their students shut up and line up.

They stood there together, and his mind felt clear.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for reading! You can find me for sure on [my Twitter](https://twitter.com/lawrussorights), but also sometimes on [Tumblr](http://lawrussorights.tumblr.com/)! 
> 
> We got musical in this one, so here's the songs in the story:  
> \- Take It On The Run by REO Speedwagon  
> \- I Can't Fight This Feeling by REO Speedwagon  
> \- If You Leave Me Now by Chicago  
> \- Alison by Elvis Costello  
> \- Big In Japan by Alphaville
> 
> And fun fact: the song Miguel and Robby are listening to together when Johnny realizes they are like gay *gay* for each other is Death Cab for Cutie's Earth Angel :)
> 
> Have a good day, and stay safe!


End file.
